If I could go back to my younger self, I’d love to mess with him just a bit and point out what Jesus says in Luke 19. Make him squirm a bit, you know?

Jesus could have said anything. He’s about to leave to go His Father. His followers think the Kingdom is coming immediately (Luke 19:11), so He tells a story to correct their expectations and prepare them for the long stretch between his departure and his return.

In the story, the master calls his servants, gives each of them a mina, and says:

“Engage in business until I come.” — Luke 19:13

Engage in business? My younger self would’ve expected, “Pray until I come,” or, “Study the Bible until I come,” or even, “Serve the poor and avoid sin.”

All of those are good and right and important, obviously, but when Jesus chose one instruction to represent what his people should do while they wait for His Kingdom, he said, "Engage in business.”

Why?

What Business Forces That Nothing Else Does

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why Jesus chose this metaphor, and I think it comes down to this:

Business is the only arena that simultaneously pressure-tests every dimension of character that God-fearing men need, and it does it in public, with real consequences, among people who owe you nothing.

I remember a time in my business when we were having a low-revenue quarter. Money was tight, but we had a client who wanted to pay us a lot of money to work with them. Taking them on would’ve solved a lot of problems, but their brand was all about startling little kids. I couldn’t do it. I let the money go and didn’t take the client.

Or another time, early on in my business, I made the hard decision to let go of someone who had worked with me for a while. I had never fired someone before. It was hard! They were an integral part of my business. But I later learned that, in that moment, I had instantly earned the trust of everyone else on the team. They no longer worked for me just for a paycheck. The mission was now real.

Maybe this is why the master said to engage in business. It’s the most comprehensive character formation program available this side of the Kingdom.

Minas, Not Kingdoms

What stands out to me in Luke 19:13 is that the master gave his servants something small. Each person got one mina, which was about three months wages.

The instruction was then, “Take this modest thing and see what you produce by engaging in business.”

So the servants went into the marketplace. They took risks. They made deals, navigated people, solved problems, and created value that didn’t exist before.

I don’t get the idea that the servants knew they would be rewarded for this. They were just obeying their master. But what did the master do when he returned? He rewarded the faithful servants with something much bigger than more money. He gave them authority over cities in his kingdom (Luke 19:17-19).

Business was the test. It was what prepared them for something bigger to come.

Then there’s the third servant. He didn’t steal. Didn’t rebel. Didn’t waste anything. All he did was wrap his mina in a cloth and gave it back exactly as he received it. He maintained it. And the master called him wicked.

Ugh. Faithfulness doesn’t mean just keeping what you’ve been given. It means making what you have more fruitful. Notice, the master didn’t ask for the mina back. He asked what the mina produced. He wanted to know what had been gained by it (Luke 19:15).

What This Means for You

If you’re running a business right now, you’re not doing something separate from your spiritual life. You are in the middle of the formation program Jesus prescribed.

The question the master will ask you one day isn’t, “Did you survive it?” It’s “What did it produce?” Not just in revenue, although revenue matters, but what did your business produce in the men you developed? In the families your company sustained? In the wisdom you gained that you can now pour into younger men in your city who are wrestling with the same pressures you’ve already faced?

Jesus’ directive to engage in business is ultimately about what business produces in you.

So tomorrow morning, when you walk into your office and face the hard conversation, the risky decision, the expensive act of integrity, remember: that's not a distraction from your spiritual life. That's the test. The master is coming back. And he's not going to ask if you kept it safe.

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Something stood out to me this time through it that I hadn’t really wrestled with before: Pharaoh confesses his sin. Twice. And it looks real. He doesn’t just cave under pressure.

Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.” - Exodus 9:27

Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you. Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the LORD your God only to remove this death from me.” - Exodus 10:16–17

“I have sinned this time,” he tells Moses after the hail. “The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.” I mean, that’s not nothing. That’s a man who appears to be broken open. You could read that moment and think something has actually shifted in him.

Then the hail stops, but then so does the repentance. And he didn’t harden alone. The Story says His servants hardened with him.

As I’ve been sitting with this for a few weeks now, the thing that keeps coming up for me is that his confession sounds exactly like what we’ve trained people to do in the church. “Just say these words.” They mean them in the moment. The plague lifts. And then their hearts harden again.

“Jesus is Lord” doesn’t mean much today

…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9

Today, “Jesus is Lord,” is so thoroughly domesticated that it barely registers anymore. It’s the thing you say at the end of a sinner’s prayer. It goes on billboards and celebrity music albums.

But in the first century, when you must confess that Caesar is Lord or be put to death, this wasn’t a trite statement. Confessing that Jesus is Lord was an act of treason. It was a public declaration that your ultimate allegiance was elsewhere, that you were living under a different King, by different rules, toward a different Kingdom. This confession cost you everything.

We’ve lost that weight. And I wonder if that loss is part of why so many Christian men can confess sin freely on Sunday and return to the same patterns by Thursday. The confession costs them nothing more than a renewed effort to try harder for a few days.

Pharaoh’s confessions cost him nothing either. The pressure lifted, the hail stopped, and he went back to being Pharaoh.

The deadly kind of sorrow

Paul goes on in 2 Corinthians 7:

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. - 2 Corinthians 7:10

This seems pretty straightforward to me. He’s describing two different responses to conviction: one that clears your conscience, and one that changes how you live.

Pharaoh had worldly sorrow. He felt real pressure and named real sin, but his sorrow was about the pain he was feeling, not the transformation God wanted from him. When the pressure was gone, he went back to his old self. The hail stopped, the hardness came back, and whatever had opened in him closed again.

This is not only a Pharaoh problem. This is a human problem. It’s a Tim problem. I’ve lived in that same cycle for decades, even as a pastor in churches.

There have been seasons where I’ve been quick to confess, but slow to actually change. The confession was real, but I was using repentance language to alleviate my own discomfort rather than genuinely changing how I lived.

That’s not repentance. True repentance, Godly sorrow, is fundamentally about direction, not about declaration. The Greek word is metanoia: a change of mind so complete that it produces a change in how you live. It’s not primarily about what you say. It’s entirely about what you do next.

The difference between godly grief and worldly grief is literally a life-or-death issue. One leads to salvation. The other leads to death, as it did for Pharaoh.

I don’t think most of us can make that turn alone, which is exactly what Pharaoh’s story shows us.

Pharaoh was surrounded by “yes men,” too

I wrote a few months ago about what I called recruiting people to tell me I’m wrong. Since then, a few men have taken me up on the invitation. One guy sat me down privately and said, “Tim, I’ve been warning you about your family busyness, but you didn’t listen to me. Now, here you are, tired, worn out, and having to disconnect from good, healthy things. Why don’t you listen?”

None of the conversations were fun, but I know they were good because Hebrews 3:12-13 says that, without it, my heart can be hardened just like Pharaoh’s:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. — Hebrews 3:12-13

Receiving exhortation in humility is the antidote to worldly sorrow that leads to death. Having men who will do this for you is critical, not optional. The man who sat me down didn’t give me new information. I already knew our family was overcommitted. What he gave me was the moment where worldly grief became godly grief, where “I feel bad about this” became, “I’m going to repent.”

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. - James 5:16

Confession in community isn’t just a spiritual activity that makes us look good. It’s how we experience restoration and healing. It’s how men who are going in one direction turn around to go in the other direction.

The difference isn’t just feeling worse

The difference between Pharaoh and the kind of man I want to become is not that I’m better at feeling sorry. It’s that I want to have men around me who will lead me to godly grief. Pharaoh was surrounded by “yes men” and it ended in death across the entire nation.

But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. - Exodus 9:34

Pharaoh stopped at confession. He said the right words and waited for the pressure to lift.

I don’t want to be Pharaoh.

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"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." - Luke 5:16

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” - Matthew 6:6

To be clear, I’m not down on this idea at all. For some people, like my wife, it’s clearly a fruitful time. Our bedroom closet is my wife’s prayer room. It’s hard to walk in there because the floor is covered with open Bibles, notebooks, and scripture cards taped to the wall. I’m pretty sure she spends about an hour a day in there, not because she has to, but because she genuinely loves it. She’s continually telling me stories of what she’s learning, where she’s being challenged, and what she’s repenting of during those times.

But for me? I’ll do that kind of quiet time several times a year, typically when I really just need to fast and pray about a specific topic or decision that’s in front of me, but not as a weekly or daily rhythm.

Why? Because I don’t love the Lord? Because the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak to me? Because I’m a bad Christian?

I hope not. I think the answer is simpler than that:

It’s a chore for me to sit in silence like that.

Could I develop that discipline? Sure. I often have moments like that while driving or mowing the lawn, but I don’t force it as a daily rhythm because the Bible suggests other ways to read and grow spiritually besides this one format.

In fact, one such format that I love is called “midrash.”

What Is Midrash?

The word comes from the Hebrew root darash, which means “to seek, to inquire, to wrestle.” Midrash is the ancient Jewish practice of engaging scripture together, out loud, in community. Not a lecture. Not a teacher dispensing information to passive students. It’s more like a group of men gathered around a text, pulling at it, questioning it, pushing back on each other’s interpretations, following a thread until something opens up that none of them would have found alone.

This wasn’t a fringe activity in the Bible. It was the primary way Jewish men engaged with the Word of God. The synagogue wasn’t primarily a place where one man spoke on a stage and everyone else listened, as in churches today. It was a place where men reasoned together. Where questions were welcomed. Where the text was meant to be wrestled with, not just received.

And it was deeply masculine in its design. Not because women can’t engage scripture (they clearly can and do), but because the format maps onto the way many men actually come alive: through dialogue, through debate, through doing something with an idea rather than just sitting quietly with it.

Where We See It in the Bible

You can watch midrash happen throughout the Gospels.

For example, when Jesus was lost as a boy…

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. - Luke 2:46–47

This is how men wrestled with scripture. We see it continues in His adulthood when He enters a synagogue and opens the scroll. The response isn’t polite applause. People are astonished, they question, they push back. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Where did he get this wisdom?” The format assumed engagement, not passive reception.

The disciples weren’t sitting in rows taking notes. They walked with Jesus. They ate with him. They asked questions constantly, sometimes embarrassingly bad ones, and Jesus answered by asking more questions, telling stories, and pressing them to think. “What do you think? Who do you say that I am? Which of these three was a neighbor?” This was midrash.

The road to Emmaus is one of the most vivid pictures of it in the New Testament. Two men walking, confused and grieving, and a stranger joins them. What does Jesus do? He doesn’t hand them a pamphlet. He asks what they’re discussing. He listens. Then he opens the scriptures with them, walking through Moses and all the prophets, and something starts burning in their chests before they even know who they’re talking to.

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?“ - Luke 24:32

That burning, that’s often what happens in me during midrash.

Paul does the same thing everywhere he goes. In Thessalonica, Acts 17 says he “reasoned” with them from the scriptures. Same word in Berea. In Athens, he’s in the marketplace “dialoguing” daily with whoever showed up. It wasn’t a monologue. It was a back-and-forth, a wrestling, a seeking together.

The early church inherited this posture. These men weren’t trying to download information. They were trying to find truth together, which meant they had to bring their whole selves into contact with the text and with each other.

The Impact of Midrash

A few years ago, I was in the wilderness of Alaska with a few other dads when they asked me to teach them on a certain topic in the Bible. Instead, I suggested we midrash a passage of scripture and wrestle through it together. A few hours later, we cut it off because it was late and time for bed. There was a moment of silence, and then one dad exclaimed, “Wow, what was that?! That was incredible! And why don’t I want to stop? Is this my flesh or the Spirit coming alive in me?”

After 15 years of doing this around Cincinnati, I know that wrestling with scripture in community has been more transformative in my walk with God than anything I’ve done alone.

My wife’s prayer closet is covered in open Bibles, scripture cards, and notebook pages. It’s her sacred space, and God is clearly working in her through it.

I’ve got a room, a few other men, and no agenda but the text in front of us.

We’re after the same thing: a faith that actually changes how we live as husbands, fathers, business owners, employees, and men in our community. The format just looks different.

So if your quiet time is producing information but not transformation, the problem might not be your commitment to the Word.

It might be that you’re reading it alone.

I’ve set up our family to not need people. Not on purpose necessarily. It just kind of happened.

We homeschool. We homestead. We handle our own finances, fix our own stuff, and grow our own food. At first, it felt like stewardship, maybe even leadership.

But a few weekends ago, I read 1 Corinthians 12 with a group of people in my living room, and I’ve been wrestling with it ever since.

I’ve read it many times before, but what stood out to me this time is that Paul doesn’t seem to use the body analogy strictly as a suggestion or a teaching illustration.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” - 1 Corinthians 12:21 (ESV)

And yet I think that’s precisely what my family has been saying to the body of Christ. Not out loud, of course, but functionally? We’ve engineered a life where we’re pretty self-sufficient.

I’m starting to think that independence is sometimes just well-organized isolation.

What I’m Actually Afraid Of

Sure, there’s the fact that the more I depend on others, the more they’ll see my imperfections. And I suppose there’s also the fact that it likely leads to more interpersonal conflicts and tension.

But the honest thing that scares me is how much trust I’d need to put into the body of Christ to be as dependent on others as the eye is dependent on the hand, or the hand is dependent on the feet. That’s 100% trust, maybe even helplessness, to be that dependent on others.

I Don’t Have the Framework Yet

I’m not going to give you five steps to interdependence. I don’t have them. What I have is a growing conviction that the way I’ve structured my family, for all its efficiency and security, is missing something essential. The body of Christ isn’t an optional add-on for families that can’t hack it alone. It’s the design. It’s how God intended households and the body of Christ to function within something larger than themselves.

So I asked that group in my living room, “What does it look like for us to live in greater dependence on each other?”

The first thing that came to mind for me is what it looked like when dependence was the default mode of operation for the body of Christ, not the exception.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. - Acts 2:44-47 (ESV)

I would love to experience that kind of interdependence with believers, but man, it feels so risky to be the first one to try it. Still, I bet the risk I’m protecting our family from is actually the thing that could make us stronger.

I don’t know what this looks like fully fleshed out, but I know the discomfort I’m feeling is the same kind of discomfort that, in the past, humbles me and sparks new growth.

I’m going to keep wrestling with this. I’d rather figure it out in public than perfect it in private.

Thoughts or feedback for me?

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I started bringing to those conversations a question I used to ask each of my employees before I sold my business:

What do you need from me?

In my business, the question often surfaced issues, emotions, and struggles that otherwise would have remained hidden. It also helped me see where I could improve and grow.

I find that the question does something similar for me in my marriage.

As someone who’s aspiring toward the noble task of eldership character (1 Tim. 3:1), I don’t want to just develop those qualities in my work, but in my family relationships, too. Paul’s qualification list in 1 Timothy 3 doesn’t start with theological knowledge or public influence. It starts with my household.

“He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” - 1 Timothy 3:4–5

I need to manage my home well before I can lead well in my community, and my wife sees that area of me more than anyone else.

She sees me when the kids push my buttons at bedtime. She watches how I handle money when it’s tight. She hears the tone I use when no one “important” is listening.

My wife has a front-row seat to the man I actually am, not the man I’m trying to become. So if I’m serious about pursuing this noble task, I need her to let me know what she sees. She can help me train for leadership in my home like no one else.

Whether I lead with wisdom, resolve conflict with grace, discipline with consistency, serve without resentment, and grow in character when no one’s watching, she knows.

But most men never ask.

As I’ve been thinking about how my wife can help me grow in more areas at home, I think there are a few questions simple enough to ask on a date night and honest enough to change me if I let them. Not because I like to hear how easily my wife can identify my struggles, but because they're forming me for something eternal.

1. What do you need from me?

This one I already ask her. It’s the leadership gap question. Her answer reveals where I’m absent, where I’ve dropped something, where she’s carrying weight I could be sharing. Maybe it’s spiritual initiative. Maybe it’s emotional presence. Maybe it’s following through on something I said I’d do three weeks ago.

I don’t know until I ask, and she won’t tell me unless she believes I actually want to hear it. This question, asked regularly, trains me to see what a leader needs to see: the needs right in front of me that I’m blind to.

2. Where have you seen me grow?

This is the formation question. I plan to start asking this one regularly because eldership isn’t built overnight. It’s built over decades of incremental character development, but most men have no way to measure their own growth. My wife does. She’s been watching. She noticed how I handled our conflict differently than I would have a year ago. She remembers the night I noticed she was struggling and showed empathy without being asked.

When she names my growth, it confirms that the formation is real, that God is actually shaping me through the dailiness of family life.

Hopefully, her answers change every time I ask because I’m a different man than I was last month. At least, I hope to be.

3. What’s the one thing I should focus on next?

This is the mission question. Elders aren’t developed in every area at the same time. They’re formed one area at a time. Patience here, consistency there, gentleness in this specific situation. My wife can see the next thing more clearly than I can because she’s not inside my blind spots. She’s looking at them. Her answer gives me a specific, actionable target for the next month.

Together, these three questions create a cycle: Identify the gap. Measure the progress. Set the next target.

If I ask these questions each month, I’m building something most men never have: a record of character development witnessed by the person most qualified to assess it.

This is what Paul is talking about. A man whose household management is visible, tested, and proven over time.

The path to the city gates runs directly through your own household. You don’t get to skip past your marriage to get to the “important” work. Your marriage is the work. Every hard conversation is training for harder ones. Every moment of faithfulness in the ordinary prepares you for responsibility in the Kingdom to come (Luke 19:16-19).

Your wife already knows the man you are. The question is whether you’re vulnerable enough to ask, brave enough to grow, and faithful enough to keep asking.

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1. Should I buy an investment property on my street?

2. Which relationships should our family of nine prioritize when we literally cannot do everything?

3. Is it a bad idea to compete in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament after a shoulder injury sent me to the ER a few months ago? (Yes, probably, but I really want to anyway!)

None of these has an obvious right answer, but all of them have long-term consequences.

The bigger challenge I’m facing is this:

We default to instinct. Emotion. Pragmatism. Whatever gets us back to equilibrium the fastest.

But I’m convinced that for God-fearing men, there’s a completely different operating system available, one that changes not just what you decide, but what your decisions are for.

What Decisions Are For

Here’s what I mean. Take any significant decision you’re facing right now (i.e. a financial call, a parenting moment, a career crossroads, a conflict with your wife) and notice how you’re approaching it.

Most men, even good Christian men, run decisions through a filter that sounds something like this:

What’s best for me and my family? What do I want to do with my time and money? What’s the smartest choice? What gives me the best outcome right now?

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with those instincts, but they’re incomplete. They treat decisions as problems to be solved rather than as training for something far more significant.

An aspiring elder (remember, by “elder” I don’t mean the guy who passes offering plates at church, I mean a man who is deliberately cultivating the kind of character that qualifies him for increasing responsibility) asks completely different questions.

• Instead of, “What’s best for me and my family?” he asks, “How does this decision align with “seeking the Kingdom” (Matt. 6:33) and my role as a father?”

• Instead of, “What do I want to do with my time and money?” he asks, “How can I manage what God has entrusted to me so that it produces fruit?”

• Instead of, “What’s the smartest choice?” he asks, “Where is the Spirit directing me, even if it doesn’t make sense?”

• Instead of, “What gives me the best outcome now?” he asks, “How does this decision prepare me for greater responsibility in the Kingdom to come?”

Same decisions, but an entirely different framework. And the difference matters more than most of us realize. Why?

Because the progression in scripture for a God-fearing man is to be a father in the home and then an elder in the city as preparation for ruling in the Kingdom to come.

Each phase qualifies you for the next. Each phase tests whether you can be trusted with more (Luke 19:16-19).

Which means that every decision you make today — the conflict with your teenager, the financial call where profit and principle collide, the conversation with your wife about priorities, the moment your daughter asks why you work so much — isn’t just a problem to get through. It’s a mina to multiply.

How This Changes My Decisions

This realization changed how I approach the decisions in front of me.

• That investment property stopped being a simple ROI calculation and became a question about which skills I’m developing.

• The BJJ tournament? It was about what my kids learn by watching me push forward and compete despite the doctor’s recommendation. Do they learn that sometimes it’s good to push yourself anyway or that expert counsel is optional when it’s inconvenient?

• Even the question of which relationships to prioritize is a formation question, not a scheduling question. Not all relationships carry the same weight. Some are building the kind of community where elder character actually develops. Some are just making us busy.

Every one of these decisions is training for future responsibility once I start seeing them that way. These are skills I’ll need when I’m the older man in the city, guiding younger families with wisdom. These are skills I’ll need when the King asks what I did with what He gave me. Skills I’ll need for managing well in the Kingdom to come.

The common man solves problems. The aspiring elder multiplies minas. Same situations. Same pressures, but completely different trajectory.

So, I put together a free guide called, “The Elder’s Decision-Making Framework,” that walks through all of this in detail. It covers

• A six-question framework you can run any significant decision through

• Real examples from my own life where I applied it (including the outcome of the examples I mentioned above)

It’s not a formula. It’s a way of seeing what’s actually at stake in the decisions you’re already making.

Get the free guide in your welcome email when you subscribe to, “Elder My City.”

Every week I write about what it looks like to develop elder-worthy character through the decisions you’re already making in your marriage, with your kids, in your business, and in your community. Just honest wrestling with what Scripture says and how it applies to real life.

If you’re a man who wants more than “good dad” as his ceiling, I’d love to have you on the journey.

If you prefer to listen instead of read, I talk through every blog post, often with more details and stories than what works well here. Gotta subscribe via email to get the free guide, though.

I’m 45. I drove home from our gym, replaying what I did wrong, discussing the mistake with my kids, who are higher-ranking belts than I am. Most people would call this a hobby. I’ve started to see it as elder training. It’s the weekly practice of being humbled, corrected, and forced to adapt.

Like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, eldership is formed in the ordinary, practical rhythms you refuse to quit. You can’t be passive in jiu-jitsu. Passivity gets you choked, and repeated defeats from undeveloped skills mean you’ll probably stop showing up altogether. Same with your home.

In the home, passivity is the single greatest disqualifier for the kind of influence God wants to entrust to you in your city and in His Kingdom (Luke 19:20-27). If your regular rhythm doesn’t include habits that develop elder-worthy character, you’re drifting in your development of these character qualities. They might develop unintentionally, but an intentional plan will always lead to better results.

I’m not saying I have all the answers about the perfect first steps for someone who wants to pursue this noble task. The truth is, it probably varies significantly from person to person, depending on what God wants to develop in them first.

However, at a high level, here are five weekly habits that have helped me steward my home today as I prepare for the authority I’ll be trusted with in the Kingdom to come.

1. Lead your family in reading the Bible together.

An elder must be “able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). That ability doesn’t materialize at ordination. It develops in your living room, year after year, as you and your family learn to hear God’s voice together.

Here’s what this looks like for us, and I want to emphasize how simple it is because complexity kills consistency. All we do is pick a book of the Bible and go around the room. Everyone who can read reads a few verses aloud until we finish the chapter. Then I simply ask, “What stands out to you here?” That’s it. No curriculum. No prep. No commentaries open on my phone.

Sometimes the discussion is deep and intense. One of my kids will land on something that cracks open a conversation none of us expected. Other times, nothing really stands out and we’re done in ten minutes. Both are fine. We pray together after reading. We pray about things we’re thankful for, anything we need to confess to God or each other, and whatever prayer requests are on our hearts. Currently, we do this on Tuesday and Friday evenings after dinner, though the timing and frequency has shifted over the years.

The point isn’t impressive family worship. The point is that your children grow up watching their father open scripture, wrestle with it honestly, and let it shape how your family thinks about the world. That’s teaching. Not in the classroom sense, but in the Deuteronomy 6 sense. It’s God’s word woven into the fabric of ordinary life.

2. Have a weekly check-in with each person in your home.

Shepherds know their sheep (Proverbs 27:23). That’s not a metaphor for pastors only. It’s a description of any man who leads well. You can’t father your home if you don’t actually know what’s happening inside the people who live there.

Dana and I meet with each of our kids individually most weeks. Usually, it’s a scheduled sit-down on Saturday and Sunday evenings, but sometimes it’s spontaneous while driving somewhere.

• We start broad: “What’s going on in your world lately?”

• Then we move into relationships: “What relationships are going well for you?” and “Which ones are tough right now?”

These two questions alone have surfaced things we never would have known to ask about.

There’s usually something else Dana and I have noticed during the week that we bring up, too. We use a framework that’s served us well: “I noticed _____. What do you think about that?” It’s a non-accusatory way to address attitudes or behaviors we’ve observed, whether good or bad. It invites the child into reflection rather than putting them on defense.

We end every check-in with the question, “What do you need from us?” Then we close with verbal affirmation, something specific we appreciate about them, and tell them how much we love them.

Dana and I have a similar check-in on date night, though it’s less structured. The principle is the same: you can’t lead people you aren’t pursuing.

The man who learns to ask good questions in his home, who can discern what’s really going on beneath the surface with his wife and kids, is the same man who will one day be able to sit with a struggling family at his “city gate” and actually help.

3. Study scripture with other men.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and you’re going to need a lot of wisdom to lead your home and your city well. So get more of it.

I’ll be honest: I’m not great at “quiet time” in the traditional sense. Sitting alone with my Bible and a journal has never been my most fruitful practice. What has been far more fruitful, maybe the single most transformative discipline in my life over the past decade, is meeting weekly with other men, reading a few chapters of scripture together, and then wrestling through whatever stands out to us. Whatever the Holy Spirit seems to be prompting us to dig into, we dig into.

I’ve been doing this for over fourteen years and it has deepened my understanding of scripture, strengthened my convictions, and sharpened my fear of the Lord more than anything else I’ve done. These are men I confess sin to, repent in front of, invite to challenge my thinking, ask to hold me accountable, and trust to care for me despite knowing my weaknesses in full.

You cannot lead your home or your city without the foundation of scripture. And you cannot build that foundation alone. In scripture, God’s people are always led by a plurality of elders, never a single elder alone. You need men who know you deeply enough to say, “That’s not right,” and who love you enough to say it to your face. If you don’t have that, start there. Find one or two men and open a book of the Bible together. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to be consistent. Start building those relationships.

4. Hold a budget and calendar review meeting.

Your family’s two most valuable resources are time and money. If you’re not intentionally directing both, someone else is deciding for you. That’s not leadership. At best, that’s a passive drift with maybe some guardrails in place to keep you from falling off a cliff.

Paul says that if a man doesn’t know how to manage his own household, he can’t take care of God’s church (1 Timothy 3:5). I used to read that as a vague statement about general competence, but based on what the rest of scripture says about eldership, I don’t think it is. It’s about stewardship. It’s the practical, mundane work of making sure your family’s resources are being deployed fruitfully.

Dana and I hold a family business meeting most Sunday evenings where we often review two things.

1. We review our budget. We use EveryDollar because it makes it easy for us to update each month and track progress. You could use a spreadsheet. The key is that we plan how we’ll use our money and decide ahead of time what we’ll say yes to and what we’ll say no to. Don’t passively let others take your resources from you. Budget them.

2. We review our time. We go through our online calendars, look at the week ahead, and make sure there’s time protected for our family to be together. Not just logistically coordinated, but genuinely present with each other.

I realize this sounds mundane, but that’s kind of the point. The man who faithfully manages the boring details of a household budget and a family calendar is developing the exact character Paul says qualifies him for greater responsibility. If you can’t run a budget meeting with your wife, you’re probably not ready to steward the welfare of a city beyond your home.

5. Exercise as body stewardship.

It’s hard to father well when you’re sick and tired. The health of your body literally enables you to lead well, handle stress, be prepared for physical tasks, play well with your kids, and make wise decisions with mental clarity.

So eat well. Sleep well. Work out well. This is stewardship.

I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on Monday and Friday mornings for cardio, and strength training on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. I know that sounds like I’m the most disciplined person in the world, but honestly, it was a multi-year process of figuring out a routine I actually stick to. It was HARD! What finally made it work was getting proper workout equipment off Facebook Marketplace for a home gym and working with a coach from Future.co for accountability, a plan, and measurable progress. Plus, I wrestled in junior high and high school, so grappling in BJJ doesn’t even feel like exercise. It’s just fun to have your throat choked and your limbs potentially dismembered while fighting for your life. (My wife is thoroughly confused on this matter, as any normal person naturally would be.)

I still struggle with nutrition tracking, though. I’ve tried MyFitnessPal and found that I hate logging food. I absolutely loathe it. If eating chalk meant I wouldn’t have to track food, I’d probably do it. So, if anyone reading this has a system for tracking macros that actually works, please let me know. I haven’t figured that piece out yet.

The point isn’t physical, chiseled perfection. The point is that a man who can’t govern his own body — who is enslaved to comfort, laziness, or appetite — will struggle to govern anything else. Self-control is an elder qualification for a reason (Titus 1:8). And it starts with the most basic stewardship you have: the body God gave you.

Lead What’s Been Entrusted To You

Every one of these habits is about the same thing: fathering your home well. Leading what’s been entrusted to you. Making sure the relationships and resources under your roof are fruitful.

Why does it matter? Because Paul draws a direct line from household management to community leadership (1 Timothy 3:4–5), and scripture draws a direct line from faithfulness in small things to authority over greater things (Luke 19:17). The man who fathers his home with wisdom and intentionality is the man being prepared to father his city, to build relationships with families in his community and support them with the wisdom and experience he’s spent decades cultivating.

When practiced consistently, week after week, year after year, these habits will form you into the kind of man your family trusts, your community needs, and your King will one day entrust with more.

I think about this verse a lot:

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” - 1 Peter 1:13

When your hope is set on what’s coming, it’s hard to be passive. You can say no to comfort because you’re living for a different reward.

That formation starts this week. Pick one habit you’re not doing and start.

And comment with a habit of your own for me and others to consider.

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If you prefer to listen instead of read, I talk through every blog post, often with more details and stories than what works well here.

No more tears. No more death. No more pain. And I’m grateful for all of that, don’t get me wrong, but when I tried to picture what we would actually do for eternity, my imagination went blank. Clouds, maybe? Harps? Endless singing? I knew that sounded insufficient, even boring, but I didn’t have anything better to replace it with.

Thankfully, this isn’t really the description that’s described in scripture about the Kingdom in the age to come. I think our modern idea of heaven is based more in Greek mythology and maybe Loony Toon cartoons than what the Bible actually says.

Jesus actually spoke very little about “heaven” as we commonly think of it today, but He spoke over 100 times about the Kingdom of Heaven, also known as the Kingdom of God. It’s easy for us to read our modern idea of heaven into the text when we read what He’s saying and think of it through the lenses we’re wearing, but Jesus wore different lenses than we do. The prophets agree with Jesus’ lens.

The more I dig into what the Kingdom is, the more different it becomes from what I originally believed. For one thing, I discovered that the Kingdom has cities.

Not metaphorical cities. Not “spiritual” cities. Actual cities with gates and streets and trees and rivers. Cities that need governing. Cities that need elders.

Let me show you what I mean.

A Kingdom You Can Walk Through

The prophet Micah paints one of the clearest pictures of what’s coming. He describes a future where “everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid” (Micah 4:4). This isn’t a disembodied existence floating in some ethereal realm. This is land. Property. Agriculture. Rest without fear of invasion or loss because the world is at peace thanks to the Lord’s reign in Jerusalem.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. - Micah 4:1–2

Zechariah 14 is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. Seriously, read the whole thing, but to give you a glimpse here, Zechariah adds color to this picture by describing living waters flowing from Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:8). The nations are streaming to the city to worship the King. There’s a day when everything, including the pots in the kitchen and the bells on the horses, will be inscribed, “Holy to the LORD” (Zechariah 14:20-21). The sacred and the ordinary will finally merge as they were intended to be. Cooking dinner and worshiping God will be the same activity.

In this future Kingdom, other nations are commanded to come to Jerusalem every year for the Festival of Booths. It’s also known as Sukkot, which is actually our family’s favorite festival, more than birthdays or even Christmas.

And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. - Zechariah 14:17–18

This all reads as if it’s very real, very tangible. We’re going to an actual city. There’s nations and cities outside that city. We still rely on rain.

Then there’s John’s vision in Revelation that aligns perfectly with these prophecies. A new heaven and a new earth. A city, the New Jerusalem prophesied in Micah 4 and Zechariah 14, coming down from heaven, glittering like a bride dressed for her husband (Revelation 21:2). This city has foundations and gates and streets of gold. It has a river of life flowing through the middle of it, with the tree of life on either side bearing fruit every month for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2).

I mean, c’mon! We regain access to the Tree of Life after losing access to it in Genesis 3! It’s a restoration of all that was lost due to sin and the fall of man. The garden turns into a city as it would’ve if man had not sinned. And we’re ruling and reigning with Him again in His Kingdom! Everything that was broken is now restored.

This is not a vague, ghostly afterlife. This is a renewed creation. Physical. Tangible. Beautiful. The kind of place you can explore and enjoy and work in forever.

But don’t miss this: the city has a government.

Authority Will Be Assigned

Revelation 22:5 says God’s servants “will reign forever and ever.” Paul tells the Corinthians that the saints will judge the world and even angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). Daniel sees the Ancient of Days giving authority and an everlasting kingdom to “the holy people of the Most High” (Daniel 7:27).

This isn’t everyone floating around with equal status, singing hymns eternally. This is a kingdom with structure, with varying levels of responsibility, with authority that gets distributed based on something that happens now.

Even for Jesus, the Kingdom wasn’t a side topic. It was the topic. He talked about it more than 100 times in the gospels. He even defined his purpose in light of it:

“I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” - Luke 4:43

Jesus talked about the Kingdom more than almost any other subject, yet most Christian men have a fuzzier picture of it than they do of their next vacation destination.

Which brings us to the parables.

Jesus told many stories about the kingdom of heaven, and a surprising number of them involve stewardship, investment, and reward. A master gives talents to his servants and later returns to settle accounts. The ones who multiplied what they were given get commended:

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” - Matthew 25:21

Notice that? Faithful over a little. That happens in this life. Set over much. That’s the age to come. Present stewardship determines future authority.

Luke’s version makes it even more explicit. The master says to one servant:

“Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.” - Luke 19:17

Another faithful servant gets five cities. The one who did nothing with what he was given has it taken away and is slaughtered as an enemy of the king.

Ten cities. Five cities. These aren’t metaphors for good feelings or spiritual gold stars. These are actual governing responsibilities in the coming Kingdom.

This Changes Everything About Today

When I finally caught a vision for what the Kingdom actually is, my daily grind became meaningful.

• The budget conflict with my wife? Training.

• The difficult conversation with my teenager about his attitude? Training.

• The ethical dilemma at work where doing the right thing will cost me? Training.

• The moment when I’d rather scroll my phone than engage with my kids? A choice between preparation and passivity.

Peter writes to elders in 1 Peter 5, urging them to shepherd faithfully, “and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away” (1 Peter 5:4). There’s a crown. Rulers wear crowns. There’s a reward. But it’s not arbitrary. It’s connected to how they led, how they served, how they stewarded.

This is why the Lord’s Prayer matters so much. When Jesus taught us how to pray, He starts with worship, “Hallowed be your name,” but then He gets straight to the thing He longs for and, thus, we should long for, too:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” - Matthew 6:10

After a moment of worship, why is the Kingdom coming to earth the first thing He wants us to pray for? He wants us to pray for a time when His Kingdom is here and His will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. Why?

I’m speculating here, but maybe it’s because it’s the primary thing Jesus was focused on. Not just to save mankind from their sins on the cross, as we often think of it, but to restore a Kingdom, which thankfully includes redeeming the subjects of that Kingdom: us.

Jesus longed for this and, in this prayer, He’s training us to long for it, too. Even to orient our entire lives around its arrival.

When you long for for the day when His Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, you can’t help but want to prepare for it.

The Kingdom that’s coming has cities that need governing. It has disputes that need resolving (Micah 4:3). It has people who will need guiding. It has real, meaningful, satisfying work that will last forever.

And right now, in the management of your household, in the decisions you make about your family’s direction, in the way you resolve conflict with your wife and disciple your children and steward your resources and influence your neighbors — right now you’re being prepared.

Or you’re not.

The Vision That Motivates Me

It’s hard to be motivated by something if you don’t know what it is.

A fuzzy, ethereal heaven where we float around forever doesn’t compel me to sacrifice today. But a coming Kingdom with real cities and real responsibility? A future where my faithfulness now determines my authority then? A place where the skills I’m developing in my home, like leadership, teaching, conflict resolution, and wisdom, will actually be used for eternity?

That changes everything.

Isaiah 65:17-25 is an amazing glimpse of the Kingdom that’s coming. In it, Isaiah says:

“They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat... my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.” - Isaiah 65:21-22

This is meaningful labor without futility. It’s the blessing of work in Genesis 1:28 restored to what it was before work became toil in Genesis 3:17-19. This is building without fear that it will be destroyed. This is work that finally lasts.

Starting Now

Every year during the Feast of Booths (also known as the Feast of Tents, or Sukkot), our family reads this passage together:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” - Hebrews 11:8–10

Although he was in the land promised to him, Abraham still lived in tents, as did his children and grandchildren. They lived in temporary dwellings because their sights were set on the city, the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 20-22.

So during Sukkot our family stands outside, points at our house, and together we say, “This is not our home. We’re looking forward to our eternal home, a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

The city is coming.

The question is whether we’ll have been found faithful enough to help run it.

What would change if you saw your current challenges as training for future authority? If the repeated patience required with your toddler, the wisdom needed in your marriage, the integrity tested in your workplace — what if all of it was developing the very capacities you’ll need to govern cities in the age to come?

That’s the vision I have for developing the character traits of an elder. Not just to survive fatherhood, but to see it as preparation for what’s to come. Not just to lead my household, but to understand that faithful household management qualifies me for broader influence, first in my community, and eventually in the Kingdom.

Because the Kingdom has cities.

And cities need elders.

The only question is what you’re doing with yours.

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If you prefer to listen instead of read, I talk through every blog post, often with more details and stories than what works well here.

A few weeks ago we were many chapters deep into Ecclesiastes, which, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a book that basically repeats over and over again how everything is meaningless. My kids especially latched on to the verse that says,

“But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.” - Ecclesiastes 12:12

Something tells me they won’t let me forget that one. Weeks later and they still frequently quote it to me! haha

I know how the book ends, so I’m trying to help them keep their focus on that, but most of our discussions ended up at a, “Well then, why even try?” kind of place. They were difficult discussions to navigate with younger kids and teenagers. I often fumbled through ideas, said, “I don’t know,” a lot, and looked to my wife with that, “Help me out here,” kind of look.

The moments of discussing Ecclesiastes weren’t our family’s most spiritually dynamic and engaging moments. Some parts where a struggle. But this is the role I’m in training for.

This isn’t the polished version. It’s not the pastor-on-a-stage-with-a-rehersed-message version. This is the real version where I’m underqualified, underprepared, and the only thing I have going for me is that I keep showing up.

The Noble Task

“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” - 1 Timothy 3:1

For years, I thought “elder” meant the old guys who pass offering plates or sit on church boards. I didn’t realize it was something to aspire to, a calling that connects who I am in my home to who I might become in my city, and eventually, who I’ll be in His coming Kingdom.

I’m not there yet. But I want to be.

So, with the help of AI, I traced every use of the word “elder” in Scripture, both the Hebrew zaqen in the Old Testament and the Greek presbyteros in the New, to build a complete job description. Not for a church position I’m applying for, but for the man I’m trying to become.

What I found was convicting because I still have so much growing to do, but also clarifying because at least now I have a heading to aim for.

Here’s the job description I found in scripture and how I’m trying to live it out, starting at home.

The Character Requirements

Scripture gives two qualification lists in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. These aren’t natural abilities I can muster on my own. They’re the result of the Spirit working in me as I continue to walk with the Lord.

Reputation

• Above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6-7)

• Good reputation with outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7)

• Not a recent convert (1 Timothy 3:6)

• Respectable (1 Timothy 3:2)

• Upright (Titus 1:8)

• Holy (Titus 1:8)

Self-Control

• Self-controlled (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8)

• Disciplined (Titus 1:8)

• Not a drunkard (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7)

• Not violent or quick-tempered (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7)

• Gentle (1 Timothy 3:3)

• Not quarrelsome (1 Timothy 3:3)

• Not arrogant (Titus 1:7)

Financial Integrity

• Not a lover of money (1 Timothy 3:3)

• Not greedy for gain (Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 5:2)

Family Leadership

• Husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6)

• Manages household well (1 Timothy 3:4-5)

• Children who believe and are submissive (1 Timothy 3:4; Titus 1:6)

Teaching

• Able to teach (1 Timothy 3:2)

• Holds firm to trustworthy teaching (Titus 1:9)

• Able to give instruction in sound doctrine (Titus 1:9)

• Able to rebuke those who contradict (Titus 1:9)

Relationships

• Hospitable (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8)

• Lover of good (Titus 1:8)

That’s twenty-three qualifications. Twenty-three areas where I want God to form me.

The one that gets me most? Manages his household well. Paul’s logic is clear:

“If someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” - 1 Timothy 3:5

I can’t skip the home and go straight to serving my community. My home is the training ground that qualifies me to serve others outside my home.

The Core Responsibilities

But what do elders actually do, both in the home and outside the home? Are they guys who just meet once a month to discuss the church budget and pass offering plates on Sundays?

Here’s what I found in scripture:

Shepherding the Flock (1 Peter 5:2; Acts 20:28)

• Feeding — teaching God’s Word (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9)

• Leading — guiding in righteousness, by example not control (1 Timothy 5:17; 1 Peter 5:3)

• Protecting — guarding against false teaching and external threats (Acts 20:29-30; Titus 1:9)

• Tending — caring for individual needs, praying for the sick (James 5:14; Hebrews 13:17)

Exercising Oversight (1 Peter 5:2; Acts 20:28)

• Paying careful attention to spiritual conditions (Acts 20:28)

• Guarding sound doctrine (Titus 1:9)

• Stewarding resources with wisdom (1 Timothy 3:4-5)

Teaching (1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 5:17)

• Public instruction (2 Timothy 4:2)

• Private counsel (Acts 20:20)

• Doctrinal defense (Titus 1:9)

What This Looks Like In My Home

I’m not an ordained elder. I’m not pursuing a church office. But I am pursuing the character and competence of an elder because these qualifications aren’t just for pastors and church board members. They’re the profile of a mature man.

And my family is where I practice.

Feeding. The schedule has changed over the years, but we read the Bible together several times a week. It’s clunky sometimes. My kids ask hard questions. I don’t always have answers. But this is where I’m learning to teach, not from a platform, but from our family’s living room with a posture of, “Let’s figure this out together.”

Leading. This means I resist passivity. I have a vision for where our family is going and what we’re becoming. Sometimes I lead with words. More often, I try to lead by showing up and doing the hard thing first.

Protecting. There are constant attacks on families today, not always obvious ones. The drift toward isolation. The lies we believe about ourselves and each other. I actively work to name those things and fight them, first in myself, and then in our home.

Tending. I’m learning to pay attention. To notice when my wife is overwhelmed. To see when my son is discouraged. To not just be present in the room, but present to the people in it.

Stewarding. Every month, Dana and I sit down and update our budget. We decide together how to use what God has given us, not just our financial budget, but our time budget on the calendar, too. It’s not glamorous, but it’s management. And management at home is training for management beyond it.

Praying. After we read, I lead us in prayer. When someone’s sick, I pray for them. On Friday evenings, my wife and I lay hands on our kids and pray a blessing over them. I haven’t done anything with anointing oil yet (James 5:14), but I’m learning to be the one who prays, not just the one who asks for prayer.

How I’m Learning to Serve

How do I do these things? First Peter 5:2-3 gives the pattern:

Willingly, not under compulsion. I’m learning to serve from genuine desire, not from guilt or a religious performance duty. Some days I lead my family because I know I’m supposed to, not because I want to. But I’m learning.

Eagerly, not for shameful gain. I’m learning to be motivated by love, not by how it makes me look. This is harder than it sounds when you reflect on this stuff publicly.

As an example, not domineering. I believe that my family will follow what I do long before they follow what I say. And I’m especially hopeful that I get some of this right with them now so my kids can pick up on where I leave off and go even further in their families one day.

The Accountability I’m Embracing

This isn’t a solo journey.

I’m accountable to Christ. Elders give account to the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4). That’s true for me now, with my family. I keep watch over their souls as one who will answer for it (Hebrews 13:17). That’s a very sobering task!

I’m accountable to other men. Elders don’t lead alone. Peter called himself a “fellow elder” (1 Peter 5:1). I need men around me who will tell me the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.

I’m accountable to those I serve. If I persist in sin, I should be rebuked (1 Timothy 5:19-20). That sounds intimidating, but it’s also a gift. It means I’m not left alone in my blind spots.

The Reward I’m Working Toward

“And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” - 1 Peter 5:4

Crowns are worn by rulers, not citizens.

This is both a reward and a responsibility. I very much look forward to both. What I steward now prepares me for what I will rule then (Luke 19:17; Matthew 25:21). What I do today matters forever.

It All Starts at Home

The elder qualification that stands out to me most is “husband of one wife” who “manages his own household well.”

It tells me where this all begins. Not in a church. Not in a community. At my dinner table. With my wife. With my kids. In the ordinary, fumbling, Tuesday-night-Bible-study moments that nobody sees.

If I can’t shepherd my home, I can’t shepherd anyone else.

👉 Father in the home. Elder in the city. Ruler in the Kingdom.

That’s the progression. I’m at step one.

And if you’re somewhere on this journey too, I’d love to hear where you are. Reply to this email or leave a comment.

I remember sitting there thinking for a minute and then replying:

“Oh man, now that you say that, taking up the mantle for this topic makes me nervous. I don’t know that I’m qualified for it, but I also care about it deeply, so I will.”

His reply was quicker than I anticipated:

I read the message a few times. The pattern he recognized isn’t that I’m competent in whatever I decide to pursue, but that I pursue the passions the Lord gives me and develop competence along the way.

I replied:

“Thanks. I don’t feel that way, but I choose to believe that it’s true.”

Maybe you live in this same tension as I do, especially when it comes to fatherhood and pursuing elder qualifications as a God-fearing man. The tension is this:

I Know This Gap Well

And it keeps growing larger as I get older.

• When I got married, what did I know about a healthy marriage? Nothing. But by God’s grace and some hard work, we’re still married 20 years later.

• When my first child was born, what did I know about raising kids? Nothing. Yet here we are today with seven children.

• When I started a business, what did I know about running one? Literally nothing. I didn’t even know what a business plan was. But ten years later, it was a leader in our industry before being acquired in 2022.

• When I started a blog called “Elder My City,” how deeply did I understand all the theological and practical implications of eldership? Not enough. Yet I know it’s already been fruitful in my life and the lives of a few other men.

Your story is probably similar. God’s pattern isn’t always preparation followed by assignment. Sometimes it’s the opposite.

I Think God Does This on Purpose

Moses at the burning bush, stammering about his inadequate speech. Gideon hiding in a winepress, being called a “mighty warrior” while feeling like anything but. Jeremiah claiming he’s too young. Peter, the impulsive fisherman, being told he’ll become the rock on which the church is built.

There’s a pattern here: divine assignment to the underprepared.

I used to think this was about God seeing potential we couldn’t see in ourselves, and there may be some of that, but now I suspect it’s about something else:

These assignments create a crisis that forces us to lean into resources we don’t yet possess. Wisdom we haven’t experienced. Strength we can’t manufacture. Skills we haven’t acquired.

That’s why Moses could lead Israel out of Egypt. Not because he had hidden eloquence, but because his stammering would force him to depend on God’s words instead of his own. When he said, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh?” God didn’t answer by listing Moses’s qualifications. He answered, “I will be with you.” The inadequacy wasn’t an obstacle to overcome—it was the whole point.

Every moment of “I don’t know if I can do this” has been preparation for sitting at some future gate where I’ll need to say, “I don’t have all the answers, but let’s work through this together.”

The Pattern I’m Learning to Trust

Every mission I’ve been sent on before I was ready has taught me that readiness isn’t the prerequisite. Willingness is. The determination to show up despite limitations seems to be what God honors. It’s His invitation into struggle that will form something in me I couldn’t acquire any other way.

I’m wrestling now with eldership — this biblical vision of becoming a man of wisdom and character who can serve his family and city. And I feel inadequate to it. Who am I to write and talk about it online?

But maybe this is where every elder’s journey begins. Not with competence, but with acknowledgment of inadequacy. Not with having answers, but with being willing to sit at the gate anyway, offering whatever wisdom he’s gleaned from decades of stewarding businesses and families and faith.

I don’t feel adequate to be a city elder. But I’m learning to believe what I don’t yet feel: God keeps sending me where I’m not ready because that’s where He does His deepest work.

And I’m sure He does the same with you. The question isn’t whether you’re prepared to be a father in your home, an elder in your city, and a ruler in the Kingdom to come. It’s whether you’re willing to go anyway.

“On this path of biblical eldership and male community leadership—in our homes and in our communities, with our families and those around us—where does the power come from to carry that out? I’m wondering if you could talk more about the Holy Spirit and inviting the Spirit into your life.”

I love this! Christopher is asking the question that exposes whether Elder My City is actually biblical or just another self-improvement program with Scripture verses attached.

Where does the power come from to live out this vision for men?

Unfortunately, most Christian men approach leadership the same way we’ve been taught to approach sin: through self-management. Try harder. Get educated. Find accountability. Develop a strategy. Build better habits.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that it doesn’t work. I tried it for decades.

When I read about the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 as someone who is temperate, self-controlled, respectable, able to teach, able to manage his household well, etc. I know it’s easy to treat them like a checklist of Boy Scout merit badges, but I don’t think these qualifications are merely accomplishments. They’re describing fruit. And fruit isn’t manufactured. It’s produced.

I Spent One Full Year Focused on Galatians 5

There was a season of my life where I took this very seriously.

For an entire year, I read Galatians 5 every morning before my feet touched the floor. Before I got out of bed. Before I went to the bathroom. Before I did anything. I wanted to embed this into my belief system. I intellectually agreed with the passage, but if my belief in it was low. Maybe at a two or a three. I wanted to believe it at an eight or a nine and experience the transformation I knew would come with it.

Consider what Paul says:

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” (Galatians 5:16-18)

Paul then lists the works of the flesh—sexual immorality, fits of rage, rivalries, envy, all of it—and says those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Let that sink in. We can talk about the Kingdom, but if we miss this thing, we miss it.

The way I read the passage is that the issue isn’t the specific sins. Like, “Don’t do these things.” Rather, it seems to me that the issue is that you’re not being led by the Spirit.

From there, Paul leads into the fruit of the Spirit.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

We lose something in English here: “fruit” is singular, not plural. We don’t divide this up like, “Okay, I’ve got love, joy, and peace down, but I really need to work on patience.” That’s not how it works. You have the singular fruit—the love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-goodness-faithfulness-gentleness-self-control fruit. It’s all one package. You get the whole thing when you’re living by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This list as well as the character that qualifies a man for eldership are not something you manufacture through effort. It’s something the Spirit produces through dependence. Which means the path from father to elder to ruler isn’t primarily about trying harder to reduce sin and increase righteousness. It’s about deepening dependence on the Holy Spirit.

My Risky Prayer

So this became my prayer every morning:

“Lord, teach me how to walk by your Spirit and not gratify the desires of my flesh. Teach me how to hear your Spirit’s voice. I don’t want to try harder to force more peace into my life. I want it to be the byproduct of having the Spirit active and alive and leading.”

I’ll tell you—if you pray that prayer and ask Him to teach you, be ready for what comes next.

Here’s what happened.

I Failed My First Test

I was walking through an airport terminal, on my way to catch a flight to speak at an event. And I look down ahead of me. I see some saltine crackers crushed up and ground into the carpet. And I had this little voice in my head. Not audible, but this strong feeling: “Clean those up.”

What? No. I’ve got to get to my gate. I’m that guy who likes to arrive right when boarding starts. I don’t want to sit at the gate forever and then sit on the plane for even longer.

I’m staring at these crushed crackers as I walk toward them, and it’s getting stronger. “Stop and clean up the crackers.”

No, that’s weird. Not my job. Someone else will do it.

I walk past them. It gets stronger. “Turn around and go back and clean those up.”

At this point I’m kind of yelling inside my head: “No, I’m going to just go get on the plane. This is weird.”

I didn’t do it. Got on the plane, flew away. The voice goes away.

Then I asked: “Okay, was that you?”

Immediately: “Yes.”

“Why did I need to clean up the crackers?”

I have no way of verifying this, but here’s what came to mind: “There’s someone back there who is now going to lose their job due to no fault of their own because you didn’t clean up those crackers. And they really needed that job.”

Okay. Give me another chance.

The Second Test Was a Struggle

A few weeks later. I’m walking into a store in a strip mall area. As I’m walking in, that feeling comes back: “Stop and pull those weeds you see outside that store.”

What? Come on. When I think about the Spirit, I think about the magical fireworks from Bible stories. Not pulling weeds.

“No, I don’t want to. That’s weird. I just want to buy my thing and leave.”

I walk past the weeds, go into the store, do my thing. The whole time I’m wrestling. I passed up the crackers. Now you want me to pull weeds? Why does this Holy Spirit stuff start with cleaning?

I walk out of the store. Walk past the weeds. Still having this little argument in my head.

Then I stop. “Okay, I’ll obey.”

I turn around, go to the weeds, pull them, clean up the little area, throw them in the trash. I’m looking over my shoulder the whole time thinking people are going to think this is so weird. Security cameras. What’s that guy doing?

I get in my car. Slam the door a little extra hard because I’m a little irritated and I say out loud: “There, are you happy?”

I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but that’s the truth.

I hear: “Yes. Was that so hard?”

“No, but it’s weird. I thought this would be different.”

“This is how you learn to hear my voice. You start by obeying in the little things.”

This is exactly the pattern of Luke 19. The servants were faithful with little and later the Master entrusted them with cities to rule. God was teaching me to recognize His voice in the small things so I’d know what it sounds like in the big things.

I’m Learning to Hear His Voice and Obey

Fast forward several years. I’m still practicing. I don’t have a great batting average, but I’m getting better at listening and obeying. I know what His voice sounds like now, even when what He asks is uncomfortable.

I’m doing a YouTube channel consultation with a very popular creator—hundreds of millions of views a month, making millions of dollars. She gets on a call with me because her channel is starting to decline.

I look at her channel. I can find a few things to pick at, but nothing that explains the decline she’s experiencing. I go through those things.

Then in the middle of the call, I get that feeling. That thing comes back. And it says: “Tim, I want you to repeat after me.”

My first reaction is, “Oh no. This is going to make me look bad… Okay. Not my will, but yours. Let’s go.”

So I repeated it as it came to my head. I had no idea what I was about to say.

“I’ve never said anything like this before in a consultation. But here’s what I think is going on with your channel. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible says in Job that ‘the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.’ And I think maybe the Lord gave you this channel for a certain season of your life. But now that season is over. It’s behind you. And that’s why the channel is declining.”

I stopped. I had no reason to think she had any faith background. She just kind of stared for a second, then kept talking like I hadn’t said anything.

That was so weird. So uncomfortable. So awkward.

The next morning, I wake up to an email from her.

“Tim, I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. I’ve been crying all evening and this morning. There’s no way you could have known this.”

She told me her husband now is not her first husband. Her first husband passed away on their honeymoon. It was the most difficult time of her life. She started exploring faith. She had a Bible, and she had underlined that exact passage—”the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

She said she’d totally forgotten about that. She’d wandered from her faith, hadn’t really practiced or thought about it.

Then, sometime after that, she started having medical issues. She wasn’t making much money and didn’t know how she’d pay for the medical bills. So she started a YouTube channel, and it grew quickly. She started making money and paying for her treatments. A friend told her, “Maybe the Lord gave you this channel for this season of your life so you can pay for these medical bills.”

She wrote: “When you quoted that verse and said ‘for this season of your life,’ all of that came flooding back. You’re right. The medical bills are behind me. That season is over. And I need to pursue my faith again.”

I read that email and thought: I’m so glad that worked out. Because I have plenty of stories where it just ended awkwardly. But this is what happens when you learn to hear His voice in the little things—you recognize it in the moments that actually matter.

What This Has to Do With Eldership

Here’s what’s interesting. When Jesus talks about leaving to return to the Father, He says this:

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you… When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth...” - John 16:7, 13

Jesus didn’t say, “I’m leaving, and in my place I’m giving you a textbook to memorize so you can pass the final exam on judgment day.” He didn’t give us a list of rules.

He said the Spirit of truth would come and guide us into all truth. Paul says to walk by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit.

He gave us a relationship. He gave us a Person. He gave us Himself, not just a book.

And like any relationship, it takes time to build trust. You start with the little things. Crackers in an airport. Weeds at a strip mall. And it builds to the bigger things, like the words you speak in a consultation that bring a woman to tears, the decisions you make in your family, the wisdom you offer to younger men who are wrestling with the same things you’ve walked through.

This is how we develop the character to manage resources and responsibilities and relationships. We learn to steward these things for the King based on His help, His partnership, literally being guided by Him, learning to depend on Him in every way, keeping in step with Him.

Where the Power Comes From

So, Christopher, back to your question: Where does the power come from to carry out this vision of biblical fatherhood and eldership?

• “Walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:16)

• “Be led by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:18)

• “Live by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

• “Keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)

It starts with that feeling of “this is weird, this is uncomfortable,” and it grows from there into confidence—knowing that when it’s uncomfortable, that’s often how you know it’s Him. When it’s weird, that’s how you know it’s Him.

Galatians 5:24 says those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. That’s not a passive thing. Crucifying the flesh is active and ongoing. But we don’t do it through white-knuckling. We don’t do it by trying harder. We do it by living through the power of the Spirit.

A man who feels fully capable of leading his home in his own strength will fail at inheriting the Kingdom. A man who knows he can’t, who fathers his children and leads his wife and serves his community in constant, desperate dependence on the Holy Spirit, that’s the man who’s actually being prepared for greater responsibility. The practice of ruling with His Spirit now is preparation for ruling with Him in the Kingdom to come.

Father your home by the Spirit. Elder your city by the Spirit.

That’s the only way any of this works.

I want to address one of the most common critiques because it was helpful for me to wrestle through, so hopefully it is for you, too.

The critique is best theologically summarized by my friend, , who commented on an earlier post:

Do you delineate between πρεσβύτερος and ἐπίσκοπος or ποιμήν? Have you considered that Paul might be talking about ordained overseers vs older dudes who are merely wise and righteous?

The heart of the question is this: “Tim, you’re talking about eldership as if it’s something for every God-fearing man out there, but the Bible doesn’t seem to treat it that way. The Bible talks about elders as men who are specifically selected and ordained by the laying-on of hands.”

The honest answer? I hadn’t worked through the details of it yet, so I’m glad he pushed me in that direction. I’ve been writing about city elders and elder qualifications more generally because I still believe they are noble qualifications and roles that every man can aspire to live by (1 Timothy 3:1).

But Sonny’s question forced me to dig a bit deeper into what Scripture actually means when it uses these three terms for elders. What I discovered brings a lot of clarity to what we’re aspiring towards as God-fearing men.

Three Words, But One Trajectory

Very briefly, scripture uses three primary Greek words that English translations render as elder, overseer, or shepherd.

• Presbyteros refers to an older man, someone with age, maturity, and experience. The guy has authority simply because of accumulated years and demonstrated character. These are the men at the city gates in Proverbs 31:23, the respected voices in community decisions, the ones younger men seek out for counsel.

• Episkopos means overseer or guardian. It’s someone who watches over others with authority. Paul uses this term interchangeably with presbyteros in passages like Titus 1, suggesting these aren’t separate offices but overlapping roles. The overseer holds responsibility for the welfare of those under his care.

• Poimen is shepherd, the one who feeds, protects, and guides the flock. Peter uses this image when he tells elders to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Peter 5:2). The shepherd doesn’t just manage — he knows his sheep, understands their needs, leads them to good pasture.

Scripture often blends these terms together. The ordained elder (presbyteros) serves as an overseer (episkopos) who shepherds (poimen) God’s people. An elder carries all three dimensions: maturity, authority, and care.

The Office vs The Character

Yet scripture does create a distinction between the office and the qualifications of eldership. The office of elder (presbyteros) in the church requires ordination, the laying on of hands by apostles or those they appointed. Timothy himself was charged to appoint elders in every town (Titus 1:5), establishing them with authority to teach, correct, and shepherd the congregation.

Not every mature man holds this office. Paul is clear: these men must be appointed, recognized, set apart for this specific work.

But the qualifications? Those belong to every God-fearing man who want to engage in this noble pursuit. Mature in the faith. Self-controlled. Hospitable. Able to teach. Managing his household well. Not a drunkard, not violent, not quarrelsome. Respected by outsiders.

These aren’t requirements set aside solely for church government. They’re the portrait of biblical manhood at its fullest expression. They describe the kind of man who fathers well, works with integrity, speaks wisdom into difficult situations, and earns the trust of his community whether or not he ever holds an official church position.

This is why Paul writes that aspiring to the office of overseer “is a noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1). The nobility isn’t in the title. It’s in the character formation required to serve that way. It’s in becoming the kind of man whose life qualifies him for such responsibility.

What this means practically: not every mature man will be ordained to church leadership. But every mature God-fearing man should be growing toward elder-level character. The qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 aren’t just for those who might someday serve as church elders. They’re the target for masculine development for all of us.

City Eldership in the Old Testament (and us today)

So where does this leave city eldership, the idea of men serving as fathers to their communities, not just their congregations and homes?

As far as we know, the city elders at the gate in Scripture weren’t ordained religious leaders. They were respected men whose character gave them natural authority in community decisions. When Boaz needed witnesses for his transaction with Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer, he gathered ten elders from the city gate (Ruth 4:2).The Hebrew word used in Ruth 4 (and throughout the Old Testament) is zaqen (זָקֵן), which primarily means “old man,” “aged,” or “bearded one.” The meaning is consistently about age and the natural authority and wisdom that comes with it.

This is closer to what I mean by city eldership. Not running for city council (though some men will be called there too), but becoming the kind of man the community knows they can trust. The father who helps other fathers navigate raising teenagers in a digital age. The business owner who mentors younger men building their own companies. The grandfather whose home becomes a gathering place where wisdom flows freely.

These aren’t ordained shepherds of God’s flock in the appointed sense, but they’re men living out elder-level character in their spheres of influence.

What Eldership Looks Like in the Kingdom

For me, this all connects directly to Jesus’ principle that faithful stewardship today is the training ground for authority in the Kingdom in the age to come.

I know I use this passage a lot, but in the parable of the minas (Luke 19), Jesus rewards the faithful servants not with retirement or rest, but with responsibility. The servant who proved faithful in managing one mina receives exousia (authority) over ten cities.

Some dismiss this as “just a parable,” and we shouldn’t read too much into it, but Jesus isn’t the only one teaching this principle. Paul states it as settled fact in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3:

“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? ... Do you not know that we will judge angels?”

And in Revelation 2:26-27, Jesus promises directly:

“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.”

I don’t think Jesus’ parable in Luke 19 is just a metaphor. Scripture repeatedly affirms that faithful believers will exercise actual governing authority in the age to come. The only question is how much authority, which seems to depend on how we steward what God entrusts to us now.

The Progression Scripture Describes for Men

Notice the progression Scripture lays out:

1. The zaqen at the city gate earned natural authority through decades of faithful living. And some of those men are appointed to a be the presbyteros in the church.

2. The faithful steward in Luke 19 receives Kingdom exousia, the ruling authority over cities, as a reward from Jesus himself based on how they managed what He entrusted to them.

3. The overcomer in Revelation 2 who perseveres in faithfulness receives exousia over entire nations, ruling alongside Christ with the authority to govern.

4. The saints in 1 Corinthians 6 will judge not only the world but even angels, exercising authority that extends beyond human affairs into the spiritual realm itself.

It’s the trajectory that starts in Genesis 1 to “rule and reign, to be fruitful and multiply.” And all of it rooted in one principle: present management determines future authority.

Why This Matters

This is why elder qualifications matter for every man, not just those pursuing church office. You’re in training for rulership.

• The father managing his household well today is being prepared to govern cities and nations in the Kingdom.

• The business owner treating employees with justice and mercy is learning how to exercise authority righteously.

• The man navigating conflict with wisdom and patience is developing the character required for judging between people—and eventually, even judging angels.

Peter connects these dots when he reminds elders that “when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4). Crowns are worn by rulers. Present faithfulness as an elder—whether ordained in office or living out elder character in your sphere—is rewarded with future glory.

God is looking for men He can trust with nations because they first proved faithful with minas. Men who learned to serve before they’re given authority to rule. Men who became zaqen-level leaders in their communities before receiving exousia-level authority in the Kingdom.

Answering Sonny’s Question

So where does this leave Sonny’s original critique? He’s right. There absolutely is a distinction between ordained church elders and “older dudes who are merely wise and righteous.” The office requires ordination. Not every mature man will hold it, and that’s ok.

But I don’t think that distinction minimizes what I’m after here. The elder qualifications are a character blueprint for every man headed toward Kingdom rulership, whether you’re ever ordained or not.

Paul assumes the Corinthians already know this. “Do you not know?” he asks, almost incredulously. God-fearing believers will rule. The only variables are scope and timing, and those seem to depend entirely on present faithfulness.

The question is: am I becoming the kind of man whose character qualifies me for Kingdom responsibility? Am I managing my household in a way that proves I’m ready for tomorrow’s city?

My family isn’t the finish line. Neither is a church office. They’re training ground for authority that stretches into eternity—over cities, over nations, over the world, even over angels.

I grew up in a pastor’s house. Ministry shaped everything: Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, and the hours between. I went to Bible college and seminary fully expecting to spend my life in full-time ministry. Business was necessary, sure, but it was for other people.

However, as I read Luke 19 more carefully today, I realize Jesus doesn’t tell his servants to plant churches or care for the poor or grow in spiritual disciplines. In the parable of The 10 Minas, Jesus says this:

Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, “Engage in business until I come.”… When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business. -Luke 19:13, 15

The master doesn’t hand his servants a theology quiz or a spiritual gifts assessment. He gives them money and says, “Engage in business.”

Not prayer. Not Bible study. Not ministry. Business.

This Parable Ruins My Categories

When the master returns as king, he asks about ROI (return on investment). The servant who turned one mina into ten gets authority over ten cities. The one who made five gets five cities. The one who buried his mina?

He’s slaughtered.

Not demoted. Not reassigned to a lesser role. Killed. Jesus puts these words in the mouth of the returning king: “As for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.”

I want to soften this. I want to explain it away as hyperbole or limit it to the political enemies mentioned earlier in the parable. But the servant who buried his mina is grouped with those who rejected the king’s reign entirely. Playing it safe wasn’t neutral. It was rebellion.

Apparently, Jesus believes something I struggle to accept: fruitfulness isn’t optional. Multiply what the Master entrusts to you and receive cities. Bury it? You’ve declared whose side you’re on.

To the master, one’s fruitfulness in business today seems to determine one’s fitness to rule cities in the age to come.

I realize this makes most Christian men uncomfortable. Some of us have been trained to see business as secular, something we do to fund ministry or a necessary evil to provide for our family while we wait for the real work of the Kingdom to begin. But Jesus presents business itself as a proving ground for eternal authority.

Why Business?

When I think about my experience in starting, growing, and ultimately selling my business, a few reasons come to mind.

1. Business forces you to create value where none existed. It requires you to manage resources, assess risk, lead others, and bear the weight of both success and failure. It tests whether you can be faithful with what’s entrusted to you when no one is watching and the outcome is uncertain.

2. Business reveals character like few other pursuits. You can fake spirituality in a prayer meeting. You can coast on charisma in ministry. But business is ruthlessly honest. Did you create value or didn’t you? Did people freely exchange their resources for a solution you offered or didn’t they? Did you multiply what was given or let it stagnate?

3. Business joins God in His mission of being fruitful and multiplying, and his subsequent blessing to us to do the same. Any successful business revolves around solving problems for people. The whole endeavor focuses on turning someone’s chaos into order, exactly what God did when he took an empty and formless earth and turned it into something orderly and beautiful.

The Bigger Story

When God created man, his first words to us were not “be holy” or “worship me” or “evangelize.” His first words were, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” Not only was it a command, but it was also a blessing. Genesis 1:22 starts the command by saying, “He blessed them…” We were created to work. And it’s good (until work is cursed in Genesis 3; it’s still a blessing, but now it’s toil).

This is the original job description for us: Take what God has made and make it more fruitful. Extend order into the chaos. Multiply goodness. Create culture and civilization from raw materials. Take the garden and grow it until cities like it cover the face of the earth.

This is what business does at its core. It takes resources, applies our creativity and effort, and produces something more valuable than what existed before. It’s subduing the earth. It’s multiplying fruitfulness. It’s fulfilling the original design for manhood that God stamped into us at creation.

The Master’s command to engage in business isn’t an arbitrary test. It’s reconnecting His servants to their primal purpose as image-bearers. It’s asking:

“Can you do what men were made to do? Can you take what I’ve given you and make it fruitful?”

Training Ground for Cities

In Luke 19, the servants who succeed in business receive cities to govern.

This is the connection I missed while in Bible college and seminary. Business is not an end in itself. The goal isn’t only to make money. It’s preparation for rule. It’s the fulfillment of the Genesis 1 blessing had sin not entered.

When I built a business, I was learning to:

• Assess people and situations accurately

• Make decisions that impact my family’ life, my employee’s lives, and our customers

• Bear responsibility for outcomes that affect others

• Multiply resources rather than merely preserve them

• Lead people toward productive ends

• Create order and value in a small domain

These are precisely the skills required to govern a city. The man who can make one mina into ten has demonstrated he can take a small domain and multiply its fruitfulness. He’s ready for a larger domain.

The man who buried his mina revealed he’s a steward who preserves but never increases. He maintains but never multiplies. He’s risk-averse, suspicious of his master, and content to merely survive rather than grow. It appears that this man is not fit to rule anything.

What This Means for Men Today

If business is the training ground for Kingdom rule, then our work as a Christian man is not a necessary evil or a distraction from real ministry. It’s the arena where we’re being tested and trained for eternal authority.

The faithfulness we show in building our businesses, managing assets, creating value—this is not separate from our spiritual formation. It is our spiritual formation.

Every hard decision we make is teaching us judgment. Every risk we take is training us in faith mixed with wisdom. Every person we lead is preparing us to shepherd a city. Every failure we endure and recover from is forging the resilience we’ll need to govern in the age to come.

This has implications for how I father my sons. I’m not just teaching them to love Jesus and be nice people. I’m training them to be fruitful, to multiply what’s entrusted to them, to take dominion over small things so they’ll be ready for greater responsibilities. And every day that my 15 year old son gets excited to see his hard-earned money growing in mutual funds, and the patience he shows when it looses money and he doesn’t pull it out, he’s learning to have a long-term perspective on ROI.

The Master Cares About ROI, so I Should, Too.

To the seminary version of myself many years ago, the most unsettling part of this parable is how much the master cares about return on investment. He’s not impressed with the man who played it safe. He’s furious with him.

The master calls him wicked for not even putting the money in the bank to earn interest. He demands fruitfulness, not just faithfulness in the sense of careful preservation. He rewards multiplication, and he punishes stagnation.

This reveals something about the heart of God that shapes how I think about my life right now. The Kingdom is not coming to men who merely showed up and didn’t make too many mistakes. It’s coming to men who took what they were given—gifts, opportunities, resources, time—and took risks to make them more fruitful.

God is not honored by when I play it small. He’s not glorified by my risk-averse self-protection. He’s entrusting me with minas today because he’s preparing me for cities tomorrow.

The question is whether I’m engaging in business or burying what I’ve been given.

Every hard moment I face in business, in leadership, in leading a family, and multiplying—that’s not a distraction from the Kingdom. That’s training for cities. And the Master is watching to see what kind of return I’ll bring Him when He comes back as King.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

P.S. In 2013 I was in the startup grind, trying to grow a brand new business with a wife and three small kids depending on me. During that season of life, Timothy Keller’s book, “Every Good Endeavor,” (affiliate) completely shifted my understanding of what I was doing. I wasn’t just trying to survive financially or even grow a business. I was seeking the Kingdom and joining the Master in His work. I highly recommend this book.

Now that I’m thinking about city eldership more intentionally, I’m starting to notice what we’ve lost by not having it as a normal part of our life. Kind of like how I don’t notice the humming of the ceiling fan until I turn it off, I didn’t notice the impact of missing city elders until I noticed we had none.

I don’t mean we lack elderly people. We have those. I mean we have no one sitting at the metaphorical gates where their presence shapes the character of the people living there. (Literal gates would make this easier to wrestle with, but alas, we no longer have those.) No one whose judgment we trust enough to bring our hardest questions. No one modeling what a life well-lived actually looks like.

The gates stand empty, and we’re all worse for it.

I, for one, want to aspire to the noble task of being an elder (1 Timothy 3:1) and link arms with several other men in my city who have a similar vision.

What We Lost When the Elders Left

When I think about the last time I had a major decision to make—a challenge at work, a marriage conflict, uncertainty about how to guide my teenager. Who did I ask? I sometimes go to an AI bot. Sometimes a therapist. Sometimes to a friend who is as confused as I am.

We’ve created a society where everyone figures everything out alone, where wisdom has been replaced by expertise, and where the only models of manhood we see are either boys who never grew up or professionals who only show us their polished brands.

The biblical pattern was different. When Boaz needed to settle the question of Ruth’s future, he didn’t post in a Reddit forum or schedule a consultation. He went to the city gate and gathered ten elders—men whose character and judgment had been proven over decades, men who knew how to weigh competing claims and render decisions that served both justice and mercy.

These weren’t elected officials or credentialed experts. They were simply men who had learned to lead their households well, who had built businesses and raised children and navigated conflict, who had acquired the kind of practical wisdom that only comes from years of faithful stewardship. The community knew them, trusted them, and looked to them.

When Boaz needed help, he knew exactly where to go and who to ask.

Can I say the same?

The Vacuum We’re Living In

Without elders at the gates, I wonder if our cities operate in a state of adolescence. We lurch from crisis to crisis with no long memory, no steady hand, no voice of seasoned wisdom to say, “We’ve been here before, and here’s what we learned.”

Then a job change moves a young father across the country to a new city where he has no one to show him what fatherhood looks like beyond the terrible twos. He’s left to piece together manhood from Instagram influencers and lessons from his father who is hundreds of miles away.

Even when he seeks a vision for manhood, he really finds only two options: perpetual boyhood or corporate careerism. The path from father in the home to elder in the city to ruler in the Kingdom—the progression that I think scripture presents as the normal developmental arc of masculine maturity—isn’t really on our minds let alone consistently modeled for us even in Christian circles.

We’ve lost the infrastructure of wisdom.

What Changes When Elders Return

Imagine living in a neighborhood with elders present and active. Not busybodies or enforcers, but men whose proven character gives them natural authority, whose homes you can point to and say, “That’s what I’m aiming for.”

The new father down the street wouldn’t be drowning in sleep deprivation and parenting books. He’d have an older man who stops by, not to lecture, but to sit on the porch and share stories, to normalize the struggle, to help him see that what feels like failure is actually formation. And maybe even receive childcare support from the man and his wife so he can sleep.

The high school graduate trying to figure out his next move wouldn’t be choosing between college debt and minimum wage work based solely on his guidance counselor’s direction. He’d have access to a community of men who’ve built different kinds of lives—the contractor, the business owner, the teacher—who could help him discern his actual calling rather than just optimizing for salary.

The city itself would have a different character. Not because elders would be running everything, but because their presence would create a gravitational pull toward maturity, stability, long-term thinking. They’d be the living embodiment of what’s possible when you take seriously the work of becoming a Godly man with a Kingdom vision.

The Gate Is Open

Paul’s instruction to Titus was explicit: “appoint elders in every city” (Titus 1:5). Not just in churches. In cities. Paul’s expectation was that every city should have elders:

• Men who are above reproach

• The husband of one wife

• Have children who are believers and are respectful

• Not arrogant or quick-tempered

• Not a drunkard or violent or greedy

• Hospitable

• A lover of good

• Self-controlled

• Upright

• Holy

• Disciplined

• Hold firm to God’s Word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction

• Able to rebuke those who contradict God’s Word (Titus 1:5-9)

Even inside the church we’ve accepted a vision of masculine development that peaks in the forties with career success and a paid-off mortgage, then coasts into retirement hobbies and golf. We’ve reduced biblical eldership to a church board position that passes offering plates.

We’ve forgotten that “elder in the city” was always meant to be the goal this side of the Kingdom—not for power or recognition, but because cities need men who’ve learned through decades of faithful stewardship how to lead, teach, judge, and serve.

The path from father to elder to ruler isn’t closed. The gates aren’t locked. They’re just empty because no one’s walking that direction anymore.

My Next Step

While I grieve what we’ve lost, I’m also hopeful for what it could look like one day for me, my family, and my children. So I’m doing something about it: I’m searching out men who could play this role in my life.

I’ve already approached one older man who’s willing, but he lives forty-five minutes away. That distance matters more than I initially thought. We can do Zoom calls for advice and coaching, but I’m realizing that format makes me the filter for everything he sees. I control the narrative, frame the questions, curate the image. That’s probably fine for a start, but it means there are patterns in my life and my home that will remain invisible to both of us—patterns that only become visible through his presence, through showing up for occasional dinners and seeing how I actually handle my kids when they’re acting up, or through being around long enough to notice what I do when I’m tired or frustrated or off-script.

I’m praying the Lord leads me to qualified elders nearby who have the time and vision to model this, not just for me, but for what it could mean for my family and, one day, our town.

Because if I’m grieving the emptiness at the gates, the answer isn’t just to wish for better. It’s doing what I can to start filling them. The gates won’t fill themselves.

P.S. You can listen to me wrestle through this post on the, “Elder My City,” podcast:

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

I recently had the opportunity to speak about the “father, elder, ruler” progression at a men’s breakfast. Afterwards, with tears in his eyes, an older man told me this:

“I used to be a leader in my career and in my home, but now that I’m retired and my kids are grown up, all I do is sit at home and care for the dog.”

Something in my heart broke for this man. I didn’t say it to him, but something in me wanted to say, “No! This is a tragedy! You’ve spent your life acquiring wisdom and your city desperately needs it. They don’t even know how much they need it. That’s why they’re not asking for it. And you have grandkids who desperately need your attention instead of a random day care employee.”

This is a great lie we’ve sold to Christian men: that the elder years are for withdrawal. For finally putting your feet up after decades of labor. For letting younger men take over while you fade into comfortable irrelevance.

The tears in this man’s eyes told me he longed for something different. He wanted a sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in his latter years, but didn’t have a vision for what it could look like or, even if he did, how to change societal norms to get there. Cities don’t have gates for elders anymore.

As a 45-year-old father, I realize I’m speaking about something I have not yet experienced, but it seems to me that the grandfather years are essential to the health of a family and a city.

Here’s the modern vision I see for the elder years vs. what I think the Bible portrays.

Modern Vision: The Tragedy of Voluntary Exile

When a man reaches his sixties or seventies, he’s finally arrived at something our culture has trained him to abandon: the culmination of decades spent acquiring wisdom, navigating crises, building things, leading people, and failing enough times to recognize patterns that younger men can’t see yet. He’s paid for his education in the currency of mistakes, setbacks, victories, and long nights wrestling with problems that don’t have easy answers.

And then we tell him to go home and care for a dog while his aging body becomes a burden to the family.

The man who talked to me after that men’s breakfast had actually said something profound, though he didn’t mean it this way: he had become a leader in his career and home. Past tense. As if leadership was something you graduated from, like college or braces. As if wisdom had an expiration date.

But here’s what’s actually happening: his grandchildren are forming their understanding of manhood, marriage, work, and faith right now. His city is being shaped by whatever values its influential families have, without his influence. The next generation of men in his church are trying to navigate fatherhood and business and marriage without access to the forty years of pattern recognition sitting unused in his living room.

His retirement isn’t rest. It’s desertion. And it’s not his fault. This is what society expects.

Biblical Vision: The Elder Years Are Not for Spectating

Scripture doesn’t describe a stage of life where faithful men become spectators. The progression isn’t father to retiree. It’s father in the home, elder in the city, ruler in the Kingdom. And that third stage doesn’t begin when you die. It begins when you’ve proven faithful with the first two.

Remember Proverbs 31:23:

“Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.”

This isn’t describing a young father. This is a man who has already led his household well, who now sits in the place of governance and wisdom. The gates were where disputes were settled, where guidance was sought, where the direction of the city was determined.

These weren’t honorary positions for guys who wanted to feel important. These were men whose families and businesses proved they could govern well—and their cities needed that capacity.

Or look at Titus 1, where Paul describes elder qualifications. These aren’t requirements for young men trying to prove themselves. They’re descriptions of men who have already managed their households well, whose children are believers, who have demonstrated self-control and wisdom over decades. The elder years aren’t the retirement party after fruitful governance — they’re the deployment of everything that fruitful governance built.

When a man becomes a grandfather, he hasn’t graduated from leadership. He’s (hopefully) finally qualified for its highest form.

In fact, the Jewish community holds the belief that if a word isn’t found in the Bible, then it’s a man-made word and isn’t a concept from God. Since the word nor the concept for “retirement” is found in scripture, many Torah-observing Jews have the idea that, until they die, they will always be generating value for their family and their community.

Personally, this makes sense to me. It doesn’t mean I’ll always be generating financial value or doing a young man’s work, but I’ll always be generating value for my family and city until I no longer can. In his book, “Thou Shall Prosper,” (affiliate) Rabbi Daniel Lapin describes it like a golf swing. A good swing doesn’t slow down when it reaches its goal of making contact with the ball (i.e., retirement). Instead, it follows through and keeps swinging even after the ball is on its way.

Now, I’m not saying every grandfather should pursue formal church eldership. That’s a specific office with specific responsibilities. But the qualifications for that office describe something broader: the kind of man whose life earns him natural authority. Whether you’re ever appointed as an elder or not, if you’ve managed your household faithfully, your family and community need the wisdom and influence that faithfulness has produced.

The challenge, of course, is that our cities don’t have literal gates anymore. There’s no cultural script for this today. You won’t receive a formal invitation to govern, which means the elder years require the humility to initiate where you’re not expected and the wisdom to discern which family is “fruitful soil” and is worth sowing into.

What Your Family Actually Needs

Your adult children need you.

• They still need to watch you work on something difficult and not quit.

• They still need to be reminded why integrity matters when no one is watching.

• They still need to see you pray and actually mean it.

• They still need to watch you love their mother well after fifty years when love isn’t always feelings anymore, it’s covenant.

And your grandchildren don’t need another daycare worker or another hour of screen time. They need access to you, too. They need you to teach them things from a biblical perspective:

• How to think through problems

• How to speak with respect

• How to handle money

• How to read Scripture like it actually matters.

Not because you’re trying to relive your glory days through them, but because formation happens through proximity to someone further down the road.

Your son or daughter is trying to raise these kids while navigating careers and mortgages and marriage. They’re drinking from a firehose every day. But you have time now. You have perspective. You have the leisure to invest in formation that their parents don’t always have bandwidth for.

And here’s what’s actually at stake: your grandchildren will either inherit your presence or your absence. They’ll either grow up with access to a man who shows them what biblical masculinity looks like across decades, or, if their father follows your lead and is also absent, they’ll piece together their understanding of manhood from YouTube, their peers, and whatever messages the culture happens to be selling that week.

The question isn’t whether they’ll be formed. The question is by whom.

Now, I realize there’s complexity in this. If your adult children have created distance, if they’re not eager for your involvement, that’s data worth listening to. The first work of eldership might be examining why that gap exists and whether you need to earn back trust before you can govern well. But don’t mistake complexity for impossibility. Strained relationships can be rebuilt, even if it takes years of effort (and even professional therapy) to get there.

Your City Doesn’t Know It Needs You

Part of governing your city means influencing its families, one family at a time, and right now families in your city are making big decisions:

• Public school vs. Homeschool

• Opening another credit card vs. Paying down the one they have

• Staying in the same industry vs. Changing careers

• Giving up on their marriage vs. sticking with it

Most of those families don’t have people consistently speaking into their lives. Sometimes it’s because they don’t have the maturity to open up and receive it, but other times it’s just because everyone else is “too busy” or “too humble” to help.

But you’re not too busy anymore.

And whether you realize it or not, you have something these families don’t: you’ve spent decades watching decisions play out over time. You’ve seen leadership fail and succeed. You’ve watched marriages come and go. You’ve managed people, budgets, conflicts, crises. You’ve acquired pattern recognition that takes a lifetime to build.

The families in your city need that.

Not because you’re smarter than everyone else, but because wisdom isn’t information—it’s the ability to see how things connect over time. The young finance guy sees the projected tax revenue from that new building development. You see what happened the last three times your city approved something similar. The activist pushing the new policy sees the immediate problem it solves. You see the future consequences they haven’t considered.

This is what elders do. They don’t just show up in people’s lives to feel important. They show up because their presence governs—it shapes what the future of the city looks like, one family at a time.

Ruling Starts Before the Kingdom Comes

Jesus told a parable in Luke 19 about a nobleman who gave his servants resources to manage while he was away. When he returned, he rewarded the faithful ones with authority:

“Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in very little, take charge over ten cities.”

The servants who managed the little well were given cities to rule. Not as a retirement bonus—as the natural deployment of proven capacity.

This is the trajectory Scripture describes for faithful men: current stewardship determines future authority. The man who governs his household well is qualified to govern the city. The man who governs the city well is being prepared to rule in the Kingdom.

Your grand-parenting years aren’t the end of this progression. They’re where it culminates.

The Work That Brings Meaning

So what does this actually look like?

It looks like blocking out regular time with each grandchild, not as babysitting favors to their parents, but as intentional formation. Teaching them to pray. Reading Scripture with them. Taking them on errands and narrating how you think through decisions. Inviting them into projects where they can learn skills and see work ethic modeled.

It looks like mentoring younger men in your church who are trying to navigate the same challenges you faced twenty years ago. The young father drowning in toddler chaos who needs to hear from someone who survived it. The entrepreneur making mistakes you already made. The couple considering divorce who needs perspective from someone whose marriage outlasted feelings.

It looks like using your time and resources to serve needs you can finally see because you’re not consumed by career climbing. The widow who needs help with her house. The single mom whose car keeps breaking down. The community project that needs someone with project management experience.

This isn’t about becoming a workaholic in your seventies. It’s about recognizing that the elder years are when you finally have the wisdom, time, and position to govern most effectively, and that your family and city desperately need you to do exactly that.

The Choice In Front of You

I think about the man who talked to me at the men’s breakfast. He didn’t realize he was describing a tragedy. He thought he was describing a normal retirement, but his tears told me he knew something was broken.

Our culture celebrates this kind of withdrawal. We call it “enjoying retirement” and “finally relaxing after years of hard work.” But biblical eldership doesn’t retire. It deploys.

So start small. Call one of your adult children this week, not to advise, just to build the relationship and catch up. Find one younger family in your church who seems hungry for input and invite them to dinner. Show up to one thing where younger fathers gather and make yourself available.

You won’t rebuild the gates overnight. But you can start sitting in them tomorrow.

And your dog, as much as he loves you, will never miss you the way your grandchildren will.

As I’ve shared this progression idea of, “Father in the home to elder in the city to ruler in the Kingdom,” I keep getting the same question. They say,

“Tim, I get the ‘father in the home’ part, but elders and ruling part doesn’t make sense.”

Yeah, I understand why. Most people think “elder” means church board member, and “Kingdom of God” means an eternal vacation in heaven. There’s some truth to these perspectives, but neither are completely biblical.

The Biblical Progression for Men

While society may have lost this “noble task” of aspiring to be an overseer, Scripture hasn’t. Its vision for men is this:

1. Fatherhood in the home is training for eldership in the city.

2. Eldership in the city is training for ruling cities in the Kingdom.

The framework comes directly from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.

When discussing the qualifications for an elder, in 1 Timothy 3:4 Paul says:

“He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (ESV)

The principle seems to be this: managing my home well qualifies me for broader leadership to help others manage their homes and affairs.

It’s the same principle we see in Proverbs 31:23, where the husband of the excellent wife has an outstanding reputation and sits as an elder at the city gates. The whole chapter describes her household management, and that qualifies him to sit among the leaders of the city. (Why our communities desperately need this elder role and the impact of its absence is a topic for a future post.)

But how does that connect to ruling in a Kingdom?

Let me unpack these two ideas a bit more from a biblical perspective. I’m honestly still wrestling with how to articulate this well, so please help me here as this (hopefully) starts to click for you.

First Objection: “Tim, isn’t 1 Timothy 3:4 about church eldership, not the city?”

Yes. Kinda.

“…for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”

The confusion comes because we read “church” and think of our modern experience and understanding of “church.” This isn’t just talking about the guy who passes offering plates on Sunday mornings. Church leadership is included here, but there’s more to it than that.

Every biblical example of eldership we have points to governing in a city, not just religious functions. When Scripture talks about elders, they’re sitting at city gates (Proverbs 31, Ruth 4), making community decisions, settling disputes, serving people, and managing the common good of their city.

The word “church” (ekklesia) in 1 Timothy 3 is the same word used throughout Scripture for assembly or gathering. It’s a community of people, not just a Sunday service. I think we’ve domesticated this concept by limiting “elder” to church committees when the biblical vision is far broader: proven household stewardship qualifies men for civic influence and leadership in the community of faith.

Think about Boaz. He goes to the city gate, gathers the elders, and facilitates a legal transaction for Ruth and Naomi. That’s not church leadership—that’s civic eldership. These guys are known, respected, and trusted with community decisions because they’ve proven faithful in stewarding their households and businesses well.

This is why, in Titus 1:5, Paul says:

“…I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you…” (ESV)

Paul directs Titus to appoint city elders for the sake of the body of believers (i.e. the church) there.

This coincides with Paul’s understanding of the church (body of believers) being city-wide communities, not the isolated church corner buildings we have today. Paul writes “to the church in Ephesus, Corinth, Colossi, Philippi, etc.” Jesus does the same thing in Revelation 1 when he writes to the church in Laodicea, Smyrna, Sardis, etc.

So, yes, I think, “…how will he care for God’s church,” is more accurately understood as, “…how will he care for God’s people in that city?”

Second Objection: “Ok, but how do you get to Kingdom rule?”

Good question! And it’s a result of the same issue as before: we read our preconceived ideas into the text. In this case, it’s whatever one thinks of when they think of the Kingdom of God.

Stay with me here. This is important.

In Genesis 1:28, God creates mankind as His image-bearer and blesses them with a clear mandate:

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion...” (ESV)

We were created to rule and reign with Him over His creation. This blessed authority was the original design.

In some ways, The Fall broke our ruling, but redemption doesn’t erase the original purpose — it restores it. Jesus didn’t come to evacuate us from earth; He came to restore earth under God’s rule with us as His image-bearing representatives.

This is where Luke 19 becomes critical. In the parable of the ten minas, the nobleman gives each servant one mina and says, “Engage in business until I come.” (More on this command to engage in business is coming in a future post, too.) When he returns, he evaluates their faithfulness with what they were given. The faithful steward who turned one mina into ten receives authority over ten cities. The one who turned one mina into five gets five cities.

Notice what the reward is: authority over cities. Not harps in heaven. Not eternal singing. Not floating on clouds. Actual governing responsibility in God’s Kingdom.

The point?

Jesus isn’t just testing their financial skills, although that’s probably part of it. He’s showing that the way we handle what God has entrusted to us right now—our marriages, our children, our businesses, our communities—is preparation for ruling and reigning with Him in His Kingdom.

Paul echoes this in 2 Timothy 2:12: “If we endure, we will also reign with him.” The writer of Hebrews says Jesus is bringing “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). Revelation describes believers as those who will reign with Christ (Revelation 5:10; 20:6; 22:5).

“…and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Revelation 5:10 (ESV)

This isn’t fringe theology. This is the biblical narrative arc:

👉🎙️ (Listen to the audio podcast associated with this post because I unpack these passages with much more detail. I also get into several other essential passages not mentioned here, especially around a clearer understanding of, “The Kingdom of God,” that the Master will one day inaugurate.) 🎙️👈

Why This Changes How I Live Now

What we do now — how we father our children, serve our wives, steward our businesses, lead in our communities — isn’t just about surviving until some escapism perspective of heaven. It’s training. It’s preparation. It’s qualification.

Every hard moment is developing skills I need to rule and reign with wisdom in the Kingdom.

When I navigate a difficult conversation with my teenager, I’m learning wisdom and patience. When I serve my wife, I’m developing servant-leadership and humility. When I make hard decisions in business, I’m building discernment. When I step into my community and serve the body of Christ, I’m practicing city stewardship. All of these are qualities I’ll need when ruling with God in the Kingdom.

None of this is wasted. It all matters eternally. I get a taste now of what it’s like to rule over what God has entrusted to me.

But fathering my home and my city is the testing ground, the proving ground, the training for serving in the Kingdom.

Where I Need Your Help

I’m wrestling with how to communicate this more clearly. I can’t give this entire explanation about the church and the Kingdom every time someone questions why I say “ruler in the Kingdom.” I need a more succinct way to connect these dots.

If you have thoughts on how to articulate this better, or another angle to approach it, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. I’m still working through this myself.

What I know is this: the topic matters. It has eternal consequences. And it transforms how we view everything we’re doing right now—not as meaningless grinding until we escape to heaven, but as purposeful preparation for the role God created us for from the beginning.

Join me in this discovery.

• One week it’s about marriage dynamics.

• Asset management principles the next.

• Leadership in business and the family.

• Building a business.

• Coaching frameworks.

• Spiritual growth.

• Family rhythms.

I felt like I was somewhat exploring disconnected territories. I knew it all tied together besides just the fact that I’m deeply interested in those things, but I couldn’t clearly identify the through-line.

But then two weeks ago, I went to a YouTube conference. One of the speakers encouraged people to describe their content with just one word.

As I thought about what my one word might be, it hit me almost at once:

The Word We Don’t Understand

I realize “elder” conjures up images you’d rather avoid. Maybe you picture the guy who passes the offering plate at church. Or your grandfather shuffling through retirement. Or perhaps even a Mormon missionary.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

Biblical eldership has everything to do with maturity and wisdom gained through years of life experience and the ability to pass it on to the next generation. It’s about men who lead their households well, who know how to manage and govern, and who have a reputation for living righteously in their community. Men who, as Scripture puts it, “sit at the gates” where earned authority is passed on.

Last week, I wrote about wanting to become a Proverbs 31 husband. That passage is typically read about our wives, but in verse 23, it also describes a man whose influence extends from his household into the city.

More about that in a future post, but here’s the point for today: I finally discovered the thread that connects it all together.

The Progression Nobody’s Teaching

Here’s what’s been crystallizing for me: there’s a deliberate developmental pathway that Scripture assumes but our modern Christian culture has completely lost. It’s this, which is now my new tagline for the blog and podcast:

In 1 Timothy 3:1 Paul tells Timothy (the irony of the name is not lost on me) this:

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

The word “overseer” is synonymous with the word “elder,” and I want that noble task. It’s a worthy, noble endeavor that’s worth pursuing.

Where does it start? Paul keeps going and talks about character traits, including his family. Paul says he must be “the husband of one wife” and able to “manage his own household well... for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:2-6)

The progression starts with faithful governance of your household. Can you lead your family well? Can you manage your resources wisely? Can you cultivate righteousness in the small sphere you’ve been given? This is the training ground.

Because household management is the qualification for city influence. Paul isn’t talking about a church building or an organization – he’s talking about the body of believers in a city (i.e. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, Laodicea, Galatia, Rome, etc.).

I prove faithful in my home, and I’m entrusted with the city. I prove faithful in the city, and I’m being prepared to rule in the Kingdom.

In Luke 19 Jesus is just about to descend the Mount of Olives on the donkey. Verse 11 says, “they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately,” so Jesus tells a story. He tells of a master who left to inherit a Kingdom and entrusted three servants to manage His resources. When He returns, He finds two of them were faithful with their governance.

And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’

And to the second guy who was entrusted with fewer resources, the same thing:

And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’

Jesus is saying that faithful stewardship in this life directly qualifies us for governmental authority in His Kingdom.

In my opinion, His reference to “cities” isn’t metaphoracal. I’ll unpack this passage more in a future post, but I’ll suffice it to say for now that this is the pattern of authority progression throughout Scripture. Present-day management skills are training for future rulership over cities in the Kingdom. The father who governs well in his home is becoming the elder who leads well in his city and later becomes a ruler who will reign well with Christ in the Kingdom.

This Changes Everything

With this perspective,

• Marriage becomes training in partnership and authority. My relationship with my wife is the lab where I learn complementary leadership.

• Business becomes more than revenue generation. It’s where I develop judgment, cultivate assets, create value, and exercise governance at increasing scale.

• Asset management isn’t just about building wealth. It’s stewardship training so I’m prepared to rule cities in the Kingdom to come.

• Leadership and coaching emerge naturally from engagement with others rather than existing as authoritative skills. I lead because I’m responsible for helping others achieve what they couldn’t on their own.

• Faith isn’t compartmentalized from “real life.” It’s the integrating force that shapes how I exercise eldership in every sphere.

These aren’t separate interests competing for attention. They’re aspects of a single calling: the formation of becoming a man who governs righteously at increasing levels of influence.

What I’m Building Now

I love this because I’m no longer exploring seemingly disconnected topics here on my blog.

Ironically, this perspective is one that I wrestle with literally every day. I’m not sure why the blog connection didn’t happen earlier, but hey, here we are. Once it all clicked, the content around this topic flowed out of me. In the past two weeks, I’ve drafted 12 posts with 90 more ideas queued.

Launching the, “Elder My City,” Podcast

I love writing because it forces me to wrestle with each idea and articulate it well, but verbal processing often helps me take a big, raw idea and mold it into something useful that challenges me.

So sometimes I’m going to wrestle through these ideas in audio form on my podcast, Elder My City, (yes, I turned “elder” into a verb on purpose) in order to cut away the rough edges of these ideas before I attempt to articulate them clearly in writing. You can get an idea of what this is like by listening to the audio podcast that’s available at the top of this post.

It’s a way of inviting you into the messy process of formation. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Join Me

If you’ve been following my sporadic writing this past year, this shift might feel sudden, but to me, it’s not. It’s the natural progression of assembling a lot of different ideas into one bigger purpose: the noble task of becoming an elder, first in my home, then in my city, and one day in the Kingdom.

Let’s become the kind of men our families and cities need while we eagerly anticipate the Master’s return. The pursuit in our homes today with the sphere of influence we’ve already been given.

One of my Sabbath rhythms is to pray Proverbs 31 over my wife. It's a great chapter about the kind of woman she aspires to be (and already is, in many ways).

But over the years I've wrestled more and more with the verse about her husband. I'm continually struck by the role he played in their city:

"Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land." - Proverbs 31:23

What does it mean to be that kind of man today?

It sounds like someone who has a reputation for governing, leading, and teaching a local community with wisdom.

The more I read God's Story, grow older, and think about the environment where my kids will one day raise their families, I increasingly believe in the importance of this role, both in my family as well as in my city's gates.

Later Paul told Timothy:

“If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” - 1 Timothy 3:1

As I've wrestled through this idea of elder/overseer over the past few years, I don't think I see in scripture the idea that elders are church 501(c)3 board members who serve a 4 year term and meet once a month to discuss the budget. While a Biblical elder could certainly include that, I think the role is bigger than this.

Scripture gives us lists of elder qualifications, but we don't get similar descriptions of what they actually do. For that, in true Biblical fashion, we have to look to stories.

One such story is found in the book of Ruth. Boaz wants to marry Ruth, but there's a legal issue: someone else is in line ahead of him to marry her. So what does Boaz do? In Ruth 4:1–2 we read this:

Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.” So they sat down.

He goes to the city gates and asks 10 city elders to preside over the case in a judicial manner.

I'm not sure what today's "city gates" are exactly, but I do see in these stories that communities recognized certain men as wise and reputable. And these men are available to oversee, govern, and impart wisdom.

I want to be that kind of man: a humble, wise, god-fearing man who can lead, teach, govern, protect, and model the life of Christ in my home and in my city.

So...

• I seek people, experiences, and resources that will equip me for that role.

• I listen to audiobooks and podcasts.

• I attend meetings where we wrestle with scripture.

• I intentionally acquire new skills.

• Try to stay in shape.

• I (usually) get excited when faced with a challenge.

• I seek out older men who are potentially playing that role in our city today in an effort to learn from them.

It's all training for the noble task of becoming a Proverbs 31 husband for my wife, my kids, my future grandkids, and one day, maybe my city.

The warning signs weren't dramatic. No explosive conflicts or family meetings called in crisis. Instead, it was the accumulation of small disconnections: older kids developing independent lives with college classes and jobs, younger kids not yet interested in the things that excited the older kids, different movie preferences when it came time for family movie time, all of it symbolic of small divisions in our family. The bickering increased. The genuine laughter decreased. Family time became transactional rather than transformational.

What struck me most was when our children began voicing what Dana and I were already sensing—they didn't feel connected to each other. When your family starts echoing your own unspoken concerns, you know you've reached a point where action is required.

The Courage to Say No to Good Things

The hardest part wasn't identifying the problem; it was the tenacity to do what we knew was necessary. With the input of some trusted friends, Dana and I decided to say no to almost everything in our schedule that didn't directly benefit our internal family relationships.

The challenge was that this wasn't about eliminating bad activities—these were good things. Community involvement, social commitments, and even Bible studies that enriched our lives individually, but when the good gets in the way of the essential, even beneficial activities can become obstacles to what matters most.

Designing Intentional Connection

So we redesigned our entire family rhythm around relationship-building:

• 🛡️ Family Time Boundaries: Tuesday evening, Friday evening, and Saturday afternoons are now protected family time.

• 🌱 Creative Shared Experiences: Instead of defaulting to age-segregated activities, we began crafting experiences that engaged everyone. For example, I created an escape room at home with cookie rewards based on how quickly they solved the puzzles. We also connected two Xbox systems for family gaming tournaments. We even went camping for a weekend.

• 🧭 Check-In Conversations: Dana and I instituted daily check-ins with each other and weekly check-ins with each of our seven children. We simply meet privately and ask questions like, "What are you thinking about lately? Which relationships feel strong? Where are you struggling?"

The insights from these conversations with our children were very revealing. Each child shared perspectives and struggles we hadn't recognized, providing helpful context for how we form stronger family connections. Within a few hours, the low-level tensions and seemingly random conflicts began to make sense, with clear paths towards resolution.

The Results So Far

So far, the efforts seem to be working. When we asked each child about their favorite moments of our camping trip, their responses were unanimous: the times when our entire family was engaged together. It wasn't the age-appropriate activities where groups split off, but the moments we were all together—sitting around the campfire, swimming in the lake together, and playing miniature golf together.

Our children were telling us that connection across the age gaps and different interests was not only possible, but actually preferred.

And tensions are lowering as we begin working through the observations our kids surfaced in our one-on-one check-ins.

We plan to maintain this family-focused rhythm through January, possibly extending it through the entire school year, depending on how it goes.

It's been very hard for us to say no to so many good things that were in our family's schedule. Choosing to prioritize relationships within the home over those outside has not always been well-received by our kids, others outside our home, or even by Dana and me at times. It's costly to many people, but the cost of not prioritizing our family relationships will be much more costly over time than the things we're temporarily giving up.

The courage to say no to good things in order to say yes to essential things might be one of the most important leadership decisions we make in our homes.

👉 What activities in your life, however good they may be, might be subtly undermining your most important relationships? Where could you create boundaries around connection? How might you design intentional experiences that bring your family together?

Five years ago I researched the impact that screen time has on child development and, because of it, made significant changes in our home. Here's what I learned about raising digitally healthy children and the impact it's had on our family since then. 📱

Back in 2020, our home was so chaotic that we needed to hit a reset button. Our kids were constantly bickering, complaining about being bored, and exhibiting general restlessness. If you have one or two kids, you can probably deal with it, but when you have 7, no way.

I reached out to a dad of another large family and he suggested that Dana and I eliminate our kids' screen time, white flour, and processed sugar for 12 months. The research suggested 2-4 weeks for neurochemical recalibration, then a full year for pathway rewiring.

We were desperate enough to try it.

The first two weeks were absolute chaos. Apparently the kids were used to regulating themselves with screens – something that would shut-off their brains and literally make them lie still. Usually, when the fussing got to be too much, Dana would give the kids the iPad, but she lost her fall-back solution, making it a rough several weeks for everyone.

But after week 2, something shifted. The, "I'm bored," complaints disappeared and our kids started genuinely playing together. Bickering decreased. They became content and were genuinely curious about the world around them. They played outside for hours and loved it.

For the entire year: no screens, and white flour and sugar were treats only for dessert on Friday nights. It changed our family.

A year later we introduced screens again, but this time as a communal experience where we watch one movie together every two weeks instead of using screens to isolate and change behavior. Screen time was now a bonding experience instead.

Fast forward to today. Dana and I have wrestled through what it would look like to progressively give our children more digital independence as they grow up. We currently have two kid phones that are restricted to contacts and apps we approve and no Internet access. If one of the kids is leaving the house, they can take one of the phones with them.

But, as our kids get older, how much more freedom is appropriate to give them?

Today my oldest teenager turns 16 and we will unlock one of the kid phones. It's not a gift because we want to reserve the right to take it back later if needed, but so far she's shown that she handles text messages and emails with her friends with maturity.

So, while this could change from kid to kid, here's where we landed with next steps for her:

We're unlocking a kid phone with...

• 🌐 Web browsing

• 📞 Unlimited contacts

• 🤳 Unlimited texting

• 📱 App store access

The restrictions are:

• 🔒 2 hour daily time limit. (It's her choice on how to spend it.)

• 🔒 No social media until 18. (The research on teen mental health is too compelling. Read, "Anxious Generation," by Jonathan Haidt.)

• 🔒 Dana and I still monitor her usage and communication for accountability. (She actually appreciates this structure.)

Most people think the Amish are against modern technology, but someone told me they're really not. It's just that they ask a question that most of us today don't think to ask:

"If we adopt this technology, what impact will it have on our community?"

Cars spread communities apart. Individual entertainment isolates us. Phones mean we no longer have to connect face-to-face.

Each tech choice provides a convenience, but also a consequence. It's wise to evaluate the impact of the tools we use, both on ourselves and our children. (I removed most social media apps from my phone and love that I no longer spontaneously disassociate from reality when I have a few moments to spare.)

Our family is not anti-technology; we're pro-intentional technology that serves relationships rather than competing with them.

If you're wrestling with how you raise digitally healthy children, here's a few questions to consider:

• 💬 How often are you having quality conversations as a family?

• 🧩 Are your kids developing creative problem-solving skills?

• 😌 How well do they manage their emotions and stress?

• ❤️ Do you feel genuinely connected to each other?

Dana and I are still wrestling through a lot of this in our family: What digital freedoms make sense at different stages? How do we balance autonomy with family time? What level of accountability feels supportive vs. invasive?

We don't have it all figured out. And thankfully the goal isn't to get it perfect for each teenager – it's to create sustainable systems that support gradual independence while maintaining the relational connection that's important to us.

👉 What boundaries make sense for your family? How are you thinking about progressive digital independence?